Secrets Best Kept
by skylights22
Summary: "Did I love? I was readily possessed by it." A girl buried in secrets is taken to serve the proud house of Malfoy, but nothing is as it seems. What cruelty falls is not at the hands of Dark Lords but the wizard she once trusted above all others. She is a pawn in a game 17 years running, one she can't understand, in a war she understands even less. And she may burn for it.
1. The Disposable Girl

Prologue:

There is a reason the wizarding world hid themselves from muggles, and it was not for something so trite as muggle sensibilities.

.oOo.

The book she was reading was large enough to cover all of her legs. Her feet barely hung over the edge of the chair as she looked up.

"Why did we leave, Miss Bathilda?"

The witch tittered in her own seat, waving a gnarled hand with the same motion that pulled her shawl closer.

"We're different," said a voice blended with gravel, coarse as a rabbit's scream. "We've always been different."

The girl opened her mouth, but the woman headed her off.

"Not just magic," she snapped, her eyes falling shut, making her face seem little more than a hollow skull. "It's our culture. Muggles can't feel the core of magic. If you had a wand, you'd know," she trailed off spitefully, hooking one finger like a warning towards the girl in the chair.

"It stays with you," she continued, but the inflections in her voice were no longer connected with her words. She might have been saying anything. "Your magic is your self. Don't forget that. And that's why we can never blend with them. We are different creatures entirely."

.oOo.

Bathilda did not think there was anything particularly special about the child across from her. She had a round puppy cuteness that was customary of her age, offset by tight ebon curls that looked a tad restrictive and painful on her head. Her small hands were a little misshapen but that was hardly noticeable.

There was awkwardness in her face, her eyes too far apart, her features poking out from the plumpness in way that was indescribably odd. She still had baby teeth to lose, which made her unseemly whenever she spoke or ate. Her lower lip was too large and her jawline was insolent no matter what Bathilda did with her hair. Overall, Bathilda could not help but think that despite the hints of beauty, she was quite an ugly child.

All of this could be overlooked though, she thought, if not for her eyes. They were overlarge, like enormous glass marbles rather than the pretty almond shape they should be. Like an animal's. Her forehead seemed to bulge to accommodate them, making her freakish. Everything else could be overlooked with growing pains, but not those eyes. There at once seemed too much and too little in her gaze. Bathilda could not yet determine if her eyes shone or if they only reflected light. In the color itself, the verdant was perverted by the blackness of an _Avada Kadavra_ glare.

They were unreadable, sitting stoically on her disproportioned face. It would take many more years before Bathilda would realize that the child was intelligent, that the way she had never acted like a child wasn't something that impressed her.

The old woman mumbled off, losing herself once more in a haze of little miseries. "Different creatures entirely."

.oOo.

That lesson stayed with me. Sometimes, I could hear the ghost of the old woman's voice lecturing me years later. For whatever it was worth, Bathilda Bagshot stayed with me. She was half-senile raising me, but for better or worse, everything she said stuck.

I wondered sometimes if Dumbledore knew what he was doing, placing me in her care. I think he was half-crazed himself. But, I could never be too sure. Not with _him_.

Bathilda did have her good points. When she was not maddened by hostile rants, she knew things that I wanted to burn into the back of my skull. I never knew how old she was, but she was already a known woman when little Albus was in school.

Her house was filled with books and the musty scent of mold. How the place reeked of cat when she never allowed the beasts in was a mystery pervaded not even by magic. She was a strict and impatient teacher, especially to a young girl, but I learned. Sometimes, Bathilda did not see me but her nephew Gellert. She told me things I dare not repeat. I don't think she was ever kind to that boy.

My life was a train of books and tutors. Bathilda was a historian by hobby and a governess by profession. She enforced the same rigid scheduling on me as pureblood children. Even without a wand, history, politics, Latin, runes, verse, theory, ritual, etiquette - I was buried in studies. As a reprieve, Dumbledore allotted time for me to practice singing, but I never truly enjoyed it. It was only another lesson, one that often had Bathilda howling at me and throwing pans.

There was a method in her madness, in the chimes of the great Mostyn Tompion clock shoved tilted in the corner. The clock dictated food, bathing, sleep, but like Bathilda, it was half-mad too, tolling at odd, uneven hours. I learned to work between its whims, curving the starched discipline of that house into a scimitar.

For all the cruelty, I have much to thank Bathilda for.

I don't remember the first time I was told that I was to live my life in servitude. It seemed to me a fact I had always in some way known, as familiar as my own face. It was the how and why they bred me.

My blood-house owed a life debt. Abraxas Malfoy had saved the eldest brother of my father, the details of the debt having escaped even the omnipotent Albus. Osric Potter died before he was able to fulfill the debt. He was an old man. His heart gave. It should have passed down to his son, but he did not believe in such things. The debt would have bore on him, but he too died, too young, and the deed fell again. Here, the story gets tricky. The debt should have passed to Osric's grandchild, but Osric's brother offered his child instead.

My mother died in childbirth, and my father, an auror, was killed in a raid. I was taken to Miss Bagshot until I reached of age, when I'd fulfill the duties to my family. And the debt waited.

This was the only life I knew. Other than the heir, I was the last blood of my house. I had wealth to my name, and orphan or not, I was pureblood. I had decent marriage rites, a good dowry. I could have tried to resuscitate our house. To many, this would have seemed the better option, much preferable to slavery. But that fate seemed to me, lacking.

To marry, to spawn an heir, even to run a household, held no allure for me. I read the old tales, of kings and queens, and was moved only by those of the knights. I lacked ambition, even that to govern my own will. Even the thought exhausted me beyond endurance. I didn't think this strange until later, when I was thrust into the world and saw people fight and die for the will I held in such contempt.

Do not misunderstand me. I was not fickle. I had one purpose in my life, and I never faltered. That is my only pride and I hold it in much regard.

I doubted anyone else in the world would understand what it felt like to me, being subject to bonds so far outside my ken, or how I could not be bitter at having the most primal decision in my life taken from me. Even now, I cannot explain why, only tell you that this was the person I was. I never resented my fate, even when it pained me to understand myself, knowing that I was _different_.

But that is the tale I tell.

As I've started at the beginning, let me speak of my time with Bathilda. It is perhaps the most boring, the most mundane, but I did not emerge fully grown from dirt.

I was not idle. I had an avid interest in everything of the world, exacerbated by my stay indoors. I read journals and literature and histories impartially. I devoured every book I could get my hands on, even the most boring of treatises. There was no text too dry or dense even when I had to sit with an encyclopedia and dictionary by my side.

In between reading, Bathilda tortured me with a spry sprig of peach tree. Sometimes she would forget I was a servant and drummed my knuckles and demand I recite poetry from memory. Other times, she frothed that it was unseemly for an attendant to read and made me stand at attention for hours, striking me on the buttocks when I moved.

I wouldn't say she was particularly cruel in her punishments. She seemed more irritated than eager whenever she struck me, and when she remembered, she always made sure to feed me. She never invaded my bedroom, even in her moods, though she did scream like a banshee whenever I did not move from it quickly enough.

She taught me vigilance and restraint, and her lessons, though sometimes brutal, were always useful.

It has been asked that in such a house, how could I ever learn to love.

The very question is atrocious and shows only ignorance.

I loved. I loved with more loyalty and ferocity than such fools can imagine. They say such things. I was brainwashed. I was coerced. What a pitiful girl.

Fools! How I burn to end you, to throttle the life from such a throat! You should be lucky I love so well, for it was the only leash chaining my teeth from you and your pathetic little understanding.

I ask you. Does a mother not love her son without seeing him? Does a father not love his daughter even when he's ignorant of her? I grant you, not all sires and dames feel this way, but enough. How was my love any different? A mother would tear the world apart to protect her children. I have seen these things.

And I see how your Darwinism will speak like a fanatic and say that such love is biology. Implant the seed, insure survival. Long live the species!

I read this and I wish I might recant all science for such a gross abomination! Was not Darwin tortured by his love? Oh, what torment to his wife to wed an atheist, to love each other so profoundly and think there would be no succor in each other's arms in the afterlife!

At my most contemptible, I am drawn to such romances. I could weep for them as if their loss were my very own, and you call me heartless.

It is my thought that I love too easily. I need so very little. I accepted men into my heart who I never knew. I loved and hated Dumbledore.

You who judge me, do you even know that hate in an action of the heart?

Did I love?

I was readily possessed by it.

In my life, I would love many men and even a few women. I saw my love manifest not as a warmth unspooling in the gut, but a shield. Let the enemy beat against me. I had no yield, no retreat. I needed no affection. I would have been appalled if some misplaced sense of comfort caused harm to those to whom I were sworn.

People dared to say I did not love. Then they dared to call my passions false! They treated me like a fool, an incompetent. They blamed Dumbledore and pitied me, and denied my strength. They imagined that their mediocre, indecisive lives were superior to mine. My dream.

Yes, I blame Dumbledore too. I was thrown out into the world and expected to understand it. I never begrudged my fate, but I did begrudge my isolation. It left me so dumb and weak. All for his secrets.

It was always about secrets with that man.

I knew nothing of the war, the world. All the books and maps in the world could not prepare me for the tests to come. Blindly, I emerged thinking my place was secure and instead was met with doubts and disasters.

How does a well kept secret emerge into the world? How does she reconcile with the sights, the sounds, the incorrigible mass of inadequacies suddenly placed upon her? How can she be a shield when she can't even find the direction of a blade?

I'd spent nearly twenty years practicing for the moment of my release. It was as anticlimactic as passing through a door. For a rebirth, it was insidiously uneventful. I'd only realize much latter, after the fact, how bloody and raucous my entrance was, how what I had thought was a natural event upset the fortunes and lives of so many. The Malfoys, Harry, even the Weaselys, Neville, my truculent Prince, and so, so many others, some I had only briefly met, others I'd never come across at all.

For the story of a girl so disposable, I made quite a name for myself at the end. I place all my deeds on the altar of love and servitude, only to have it spurned.

In the end, it was not the name of a knight gifted me, nor even that of a hero. I didn't even have the honor to be called a whore. To read myself in history, I am only ever known as a victim. Of Dumbledore, of Voldemort, the Malfoys, even the Potters. But it is not true. And most these men I loved as easily as a babe.

But to truly begin my story, I should start with my given name. Like Harry, it was simple and uninspiring, yet it hid more than I knew.

I am Rosalind.


	2. A Potter in the House of Malfoy

Chapter 2: A Potter in the House of Malfoy

The next week was spent wandering the vast chambers of Malfoy Manor. No part of the manor was to be taken lightly. Though a vast portion remained above ground, I soon learned that it served as mere facade to the true realm beneath it, a labyrinth of stone and rich, old tapestries.

Touches of magic forbade me entrance to those rooms made for ritual and the deep library, where the family grimoires were likely held. There were many curses sunk deep in the stone, redcap curses meant to lead those not of the blood to various deaths. It was not a welcoming place to any guest.

On the other hand, the rooms above ground were bright and beautiful. The dance hall was magnificent. Magic made the walls stretch into sky, mutable with the occasion. Large marble columns, bred with tendrils of silver, stretched as least sixty feet. Crystal glories clenched tight in wait below a dome of glass.

Void of guests and hosts, it carried an aching emptiness, desperate for music. I didn't think my violin had made the journey from Bathilda's house, but it would have been inappropriate to fill the room with such crude fumbling anyway. Such places were made for grace and nothing else.

The dining halls came in varying moods, some somber to display the host's displeasure, but the best had glass doors leading to a veranda. The grounds spread out in excited green, swollen with spawn. The beds and plants were meticulously trimmed, but nothing, not even Malfoy magic, could curb the eagerness of summer. It held none of the variety of an international business and everything of an old European family. Ivy and roses and magical flora that piqued the green with purple and strange shades of orange.

Everything one would expect of the house of Malfoy, proud and rich of heritage.

I saw little of my owners, but it was natural that they would be watching me, deciphering the mysterious girl brought by Dumbledore. I hid nothing, inspecting the quality of the chairs and admiring the decor.

They had so many house elves I saw no real use for a servant like me. They enhanced their standing merely by hosting me, but there was little in labor that I could contribute. Their dinner appeared and left according to their will. The elves cleaned far better than I could dream. I suspected my true worth would come later when it came time to parade me before society.

Of course I knew they had a son, Draco Lucius. I spent five days acclimating to the manor's hostile attitude before I met him. Malfoy Manor had three libraries, not including the one below ground. I did not know their individual history, but I found the one on the second floor in the west wing the most kindly. Its dominant color was red, a hue I had always been partial to. The walls fell into a circle, casements of cushioned stone lending seats to windows full of magicked sun. It remained forever noon in this room, the low ceiling creating a homeliness not present in any of the others.

Nearly at the end of my wandering, I'd returned to catch the titles I'd skimmed. At first, I did not see him. He'd taken a seat on a casement, in full view of the door but sheltered by rays of light. A book settled in his lap, propped by his hand, but he looked up when I entered.

He had his father's eyes, the same shape and silver lashes. But he was missing the elegance, the fortitude that defined Lucius Malfoy. His hair fell down informally, his shirt untucked, though everything about him remained the height of wealth and refinery.

Soon, the boy sneered, ruining the last visage of grace in his face. I stood to attention, my back straight but my shoulders low and undemanding.

"Well, another bloody Potter." He snapped the book shut, adding flare to his words.

An unbred Malfoy, nothing like his father. I hadn't expected this. I thought a wizard come into his inheritance would seem less like a child.

"Master Draco," I said simply, respectfully, tipping my head deep enough to show deference.

He blinked. Surprised I'd know the formalities? I adjusted my view of him again. But the shock faded quickly, succumbing to the child.

"Another of Dumbledore's precious Golden children," he said, trying to write me off. "You aren't going to be treated like royalty here." He gave an anticipating sneer, cruelty lighting his eyes like off crystal.

"I have no such expectations," I said and frowned. "I also am Dumbledore's nothing. I belong to Malfoy."

He raised one delicate brow, the arch absolutely perfect. "Really?" he asked.

I watched him stalk between us, reaching me in several drawn seconds. He pressed me against the bookshelf, a wand at my throat.

"Then, you won't object," he said in a voice like oil. His hand skirted my waist, floating upwards and groping my breast.

What a curious creature?

I readjusted the shelf along my back. "Of course not."

He glared for a moment then huffed indignantly and backed away, removing his hand, the picture of sullen toddler.

Draco Malfoy was a near carbon copy of his father, save the widow's peak. How could someone who looked so similar be so different. Did this boy even know the meaning of subtlety? I never knew such hotheaded creatures existed, especially of purebloods and heirs.

"Is it permitted to use your library, Master Draco?"

His stare was blatantly suspicious and surprisingly open. So much so that I had trouble controlling a smile. When he remained stubbornly silent, I removed a volume from the shelves. Most of the content of this library had been recorded before the advent of the printing press. Most were bound with crude dragonskin, which had been illegal for nearly a century. Wordless, the titles were scrawled in elegant calligraphy on the inside cover, most likely by the hand of a monk. The yellowed pages were bound together by horse string and preservation spells. The books on these shelves were probably the only ones in existence.

_Cutting__Curses__and__Hemophilia_. It came without an author, the starting C taking up a full quarter of the page. The second i in Hemophilia was marked off by several dots as the ink dripped. With a slight hum, I set it back on the shelf. My finger ran along the coarse spines, pulling out and putting back.

_Potions__of__Pain__and__Tolerance_. I pulled out the volume.

Draco had retained his seat, pretending not to watch me, so I took my own, angled to be in his direct line of sight. I curled my legs beneath me, discarding my shoes. Certainly, it was hardly proper, but my stockings felt good against the leather and I rather liked the way Draco's eyes glazed over when he was shocked.

I will always remember that first meeting and in a way specifically different than I remembered my meeting with Lucius and his gorgeous wife. Draco was another animal. I knew without a doubt that Lord Malfoy was dangerous, that he enjoyed playing games with people's lives. I also knew without a shadow of a doubt that the whole world would have to change before his son could follow in his footsteps.

Lucius Malfoy was an arrogant creature. While Draco certainly carried the pride of an heir, his arrogance was of a shallower breed. Of course, I learned this much later, but it was part of the reason why I held Draco so dear to me. Much dearer than his sadistic father. I could never have told at that first meeting what made me smile. Indeed, even now, I can tell nothing of the nuisances of the heart, a being far more mysterious than magic.

o.O.o

After a while, Draco returned to his book, and I began to read mine. We sat in comfortable silent until it became time to change for dinner.

Dinner was a silent affair as usual. Meals were perhaps the most formal affair between purebloods, and even though the Malfoys had no guests, they maintained the decorum of an elite house. I had been trained to serve in such affairs and waited by the wall in my crisp serving gown, my gaze staunchly on the floor. I held the water and wine in cylinders of air. I knew enough wandless magic and concentration to balance them on the tilt of my fingers and had trained hard enough to hold it for hours.

I slid the liquid into their glasses, a shadow on the wall, not looking up from beneath my lashes. This too would have been a test, as very few servants retained any magic at all, much less to perform such a task. It increased the prestige of the family that I could do so.

The thought made me smile. For a moment, I was greedily captivated by the crest on my gown.

It was done in silver on the left breast. Two rams, proud and fierce, butted heads over a stylized M, the font thin and crisp. The potter crest was very similar save that it held the thrown back thrust of two stags, an traveler's cloak unfurled in the center.

I caught Draco staring at me. He sat further down than his parents, a distance that forbade any casual conversation. Manners dictated that I be invisible, but Draco didn't seemed to care, watching openly while he called for more wine.

I filled his glass, ignoring anything else, but his gaze might have well have been mercury, scratching my flesh. Later, I would wonder why I didn't take his stare as a challenge, like I did the glasses. Why I wouldn't modestly bury my head and think him foolish for believing he could tempt me.

But I looked up.

For a moment, it was just the two of us in that large, overdone room. A son sitting on his father's right, a spearing knife in one hand and a glass of red wine in the other, his eyes captured by a comely stranger. Though standing in my new Malfoy crest, I was nothing but an outsider in my master's home. Still, this was as close to a home as I would ever know.

Such things, though cold in their diamond beauty, were not so unapproachable.

o.O.o

The rest of the week passed quickly. On the seventh of August, I turned 17 and was legally bond to the Malfoys. No ceremony took place. Just a quiet understanding that my magic and life was bound to theirs. That I had now irrevocably become a part of them.

I was in the library again when Draco decided to make my life even more interesting.

His hostility towards me had ebbed. Whether because he knew I acknowledged his superiority or out of impatience and laziness, I did not know. Maybe it was out of pure boredom what he did next.

Long before I stopped reading, I noticed that Draco had been paying no attention to his book. At first, I thought he was deep in thought. However, I soon began to realize that his thoughts were somewhat less self-involved that day.

It came as no surprise to me when he rose out of his seat. However, what did surprise me was when he leaned quite close into my chair.

Smirking, he drew the book out of my hands. "Tell me. What precisely are you looking for? What do you want?"

The first thing that ran through my head, embarrassingly, was that Draco had rather high cheekbones. His smile was more leer, and I noticed that his teeth were all straight and white. I had never seen his eyes so close. Cerulean silver. I couldn't help but love the way they shone, like dents in well-worn armor.

"Whatever you want of me," I told him.

His gaze was full of rude disbelief. "Don't you know the feud between our families?"

He was rather naïve for an heir I thought.

"Your grandfather saved my uncle."

"Traditions are not what they used to be," he responded scornfully, but there was a sadness of a creature out of water in the back of his gaze. "The old bastard would have found a loophole."

It took me a moment to realize he was talking about Dumbledore. I shook my head. "I was born to serve you. It's all I was meant to do."

He didn't believe me, but I didn't think he cared much either.

"You are nothing like Potter," he muttered, almost in disappointment.

"Harry Potter?" I asked.

He fixed me with a glare. "For all you look just like him," he muttered irritably.

"I wouldn't know, my lord. I've never seen him."

He stared at me incredulously for a moment then laughed. "You've never seen Harry Potter?"

He was still leaning into me, and I found that I also loved his laugh and the disheveled way his hair was flung into his face.

"No," I told him.

"Merlin," he finished, shaking his head.

"Is Harry Potter truly that important?" I asked.

Obviously, it was the wrong thing to ask. "No," Draco snapped, his pretty face sliding once more into a sneer. "He's a worthless, spoiled brat who hides behind everyone else whenever he's in trouble."

It took an effort not to laugh in his face. "As you say, Master Draco."

He stared at me with some unreadable expression. Then, he leaned further down. His lips met my own with a softness I had not expected. I had thought he would be harder, possessive, but the kiss was chaste and irritably gentle.

I had never been kissed before. I knew all about sex and the rituals surrounding it, but I had never imagined that someone would kiss me. It was something Bathilda didn't have to warn me against wanting.

But something surged within me. Logically, I knew he was teasing, trying to find a weakness that his violent approach had not won. I didn't care. I never knew that other people could be so warm and real to me.

I was forming myself into him, kissing him back. Distantly, I controlled myself and did not drag him atop me or, heaven forbid, loop my arms around his neck. But I was angry. I was angry that he was being so slow. It was impossible to pretend otherwise, to fake such vapid docility.

Then, he pulled away. I wanted to go with him, but I remained in my chair, wondering what he would do. I would have entrusted the world to him then if he asked, and he knew it. I let him see it.

I had never wanted something before. I wasn't even sure precisely what I wanted now. But the bubble of my existence had been punctured. I felt it fading, evolving into something else, brilliant with the anger of my kiss. What I would have given for Draco to give me an order then. Some, any use.

When I got to my room, Lucius was there, standing by the door. He was a tall man and his lean was as imposing as his stand. Arms crossed, hair falling over his shoulder from its loose tie, I saw the warning in his gaze. I would have been lying to say that I was not a little scared. And I would have been a fool not to be.

He left without speaking, and I let him leave without responding to the subtle display of power and the lingering threat that he marked at my door.

So he was a father after all. I respected his threat but found it silly as well. I had no will but Malfoy. To think that I would betray his son. The world outside the cottage was strange, that even Lucius Malfoy would not understand the depth of what I was.

o.O.o

The silence stretched on after Dumbledore finished speaking. The Order of the Phoenix staggered the room. Some stood and others sat but they were all entirely speechless.

"… I have a cousin?"

Harry's numb voice broke the spell as the members simultaneously began yelling out across the table.

"Why was I not told of this?" McGonagall half yelled and half accused, her heavy Scottish lilt pervading the chaotic screeching.

Molly Weasley's voice, bolstered by rearing seven children, hovered over the uproar. "Where on earth have you hidden the child, Albus? Why wasn't she with Harry?"

"You hid her from her family!" If anyone was surprised by the anger in Remus Lupin's usually mild voice, they did not show it.

After the yelling carried back and forth for a bit, Dumbledore raised his single unmarred hand. The room settled into indignant murmurs. Dumbledore's quiet eyes met Harry's over the table, and the room finally fell completely silent.

"Why?"

One word, saying everything and nothing at the same time, fell from Harry's lips. It spoke nothing of the outrage in the beautiful eyes behind bulky glasses. There was no twinkle in Dumbledore's gaze. As he spoke, he certainly looked every bit of his prominent age.

"I promised your grandfather, Harry."

Lupin leaned carefully over the table. "What are you talking about?" he said, butterscotch eyes weary but demanding.

Dumbledore's gaze never left Harry's, who did nothing more than stare back. The old man took in his breath.

"The Potters were an old family, Harry," he said, addressing only the boy sitting across from him. "And while James certainly never carried any of the old fashions into his life, his father did."

He steepled his fingers but did not stop talking.

"He never told me the details of the incident. I don't believe anyone but the two of them truly knew. But, the fact remains. Abraxas Malfoy saved your grandfather's life."

Several of the older family members gasped, knowing what such a thing would mean to the descendents of the Ancient Houses. Minerva paled, her fingers twitching like the tail of an angry cat.

"Cayden Potter was the patriarch of the Potter line at the time," Dumbledore continued, ignoring everything but Harry's unwavering gaze. "There are certain rules, rules that reside even today, that he was obliged to follow. He now owed a life debt to the Malfoy patriarch, the same type of life debt that is owed you by Peter Pettigrew."

Dumbledore's blue eyes, soft as a robin's egg and as knowing as the sky, pierced Harry. "By law, Peter's life is forfeit to you."

Harry opened his mouth to speak, a scornful reply on his tongue, but he was forestalled by the slight lowering of Dumbledore's gaze. Harry remained silent and Dumbledore continued.

"However, Cayden's life was much more complicated. As a patriarch, his duty to his family was stronger than that to the debt. Normally, the debt would have fallen to the next of kin. However, his only son was already promised to another, your mother, Harry. And she was pregnant.

"His brother Osric took the responsibility that would have fallen to you by offering his daughter, Rosalind. As a matter purely between two old houses, they kept the affair quiet. When Osric and his wife both died, I decided that it should remain a secret as well. Rosalind Potter is your second cousin, Harry," he said, his summer eyes sad over his wrinkled face and half-moon spectacles.

_It__would__have__fallen__to__me?_Harry thought quietly.

"But where has she been all these years?" Molly asked impatiently.

Dumbledore turned his gaze to her. "Cayden bade me to keep her safe until she reached of legal age. She was to be a secret," he said again, "which I fully enforced after entrusting Harry to the Dursleys. Voldemort could not know."

In the shudders that went around the room, Harry raised his head.

"Where is she?" he demanded. Low though it was, it seemed to fill the room.

Dumbledore looked down at him. "I kept her with a dear friend who could school her. Now, she is with the Malfoys."

"WHAT!"

No one could be sure which voice screamed it first, as over half the Order converged on the table. Harry noticed Ron yelling beside him, his freckled face red with anger. Again, Dumbledore remained stoic in the onslaught. He waited patiently for them to subside once more.

"She is 17," he said in a clear voice. Several people scoffed at him. "It would serve no purpose for Voldemort to kill her," he promised. "As soon as she set foot in Malfoy Manor, the Malfoys became responsible for her wellbeing."

"That's the whole problem!" Ron yelled and was for once not admonished by his mother.

Dumbledore looked at all of them silently. This time his gaze barely lingered on the seemingly only composed person across from him. He let out a deep sigh and looked down at the table.

"I am sorry."

He looked up into the startled gazes around him. However, Harry noticed that this time, he was glossed over completely.

"But it was her or Harry."

No one spoke. The numbness that had consumed Harry broke. He rose. In the silence, his chair screeched across the floor. He left the room, and they could only watch his back.

The door, blown by a nonexistent breeze, closed behind him, leaving the Order alone.


	3. The Outside World

Chapter 3: The Outside World

I didn't know what Dumbledore was here for, but I was certain that he hadn't been invited. Lucius Malfoy did not bother to hide the glare that rightfully should have made the man spontaneously combust. Draco had settled for a prissy irritation, like a doll doppleganger at his father's side.

And Dumbledore just smiled.

"Thank you for welcoming me, Lucius. Where is Narcissa?"

"She's at a previous engagement," he said coldly. "Is there some reason why your presence is defiling my carpet?"

"Oh, yes," Dumbledore muttered as if he had forgotten. His eyes sought me out. "There you are, my dear."

He pulled a letter from his robes, handing it to me. I looked to Lucius. He gave a curt, frustrated nod, not looking away from Dumbledore.

My surprise made me speak aloud. "A Hogwarts letter?"

He smiled. "I know you've already passed the NEWTS for Arithmancy and Ancient Runes, but that doesn't give you reason to slack on your remaining subjects," he chided.

As if I would! That was my first thought before I realized education was no longer my duty.

I handed it back to him, scowling. "If Master Malfoy wishes for me to continue my studies then that is his will." I gave him a look, whispering, "This was rather crude for you."

The damn man twinkled at me.

"Of course, my dear. How silly of me. Lucius, I do hope you will enforce the girl's education. It's rather dangerous for an untrained witch to remain without instruction."

_Untrained..._ My anger bubbled like a testy potion. The muscles in my throat jumped, and I controlled inappropriate urges. Draco sent me an appraising look.

Lucius met Dumbledore's smile evenly. "I was unaware someone in her position needed schooling. Is she that dangerous?" It was a barbed question (of course).

I quenched my nerves, indigence turning to shame. I demanded of myself that I not look at the man who for so long held my life in his hands.

"Oh Lucius," he said, as if told a joke. "Is any witch of her age 'dangerous?' I think not."

Lucius bit his tongue behind his cheek, looking like he'd tasted a foul lemon.

"But I'm afraid my obligations to academia won't release her," he continued. "She's be the top of her year in other circumstances."

Lucius gave me an accessing look, gaining faint interest. I remained silent, though I yearned to object.

"Life debts are not permitted into Hogwarts," he said, making one last protest.

The comment was a joke. Dumbledore raised his hand. "I'm sure between us the boards could see reason."

Lucius had the gleam of greed in his eyes, and I knew Dumbledore had won, though what he'd won precisely was ambiguous.

"Now," he said busily. "Rose no longer has access to the Potter vault" – I had a vault? – "but she is more than welcome to the school funds."

Lucius looked finely insulted. Dumbledore just grinned, possibly the only wizard capable of insulting Lucius Malfoy without fear of retribution.

Dumbledore glanced down at one of five devices on his arm. "Goodness, I'm late for a meeting. A supply list is in the envelope. I'll bid you farewell for the moment, Lucius, Draco." He paused a little longer to regard me and the letter scrunched in my fist. "Rose."

I frowned in response. Then, he was gone on a twist of heel. I looked at the letter, made out to _Rosalind__Titian__Potter,__Servant__Quarters,__Malfoy__Manor_ in Albus' own hand. Right fine bastard. I could not purport his mission in this. He had never spoken to me of attending school, had never spoken of Hogwarts. I had learned through my own studies that he was its master but had taken no more interest.

"Miss Potter," Lucius called to me, extending his hand.

I blushed, realizing I'd hoarded the invitation. He broke the seal with his nail, flipping it open with an elegant, well-practiced gesture. His face turned confused as he read through it.

"You are not in possession of a wand?"

Confused by such an obvious statement, I replied, "No, my lord."

He frowned, confusion curiously turning to distaste. Perhaps the tradition of denying wands to life debts had gone out of favor. I thought it made sense, since so few life debts had magic anyway.

"You know how to use one, don't you?" Draco said condescendingly. "How can you be top of anything if you don't have a wand?"

Carefully, I said, "It is likely that Professor Dumbledore exaggerated. I understand basic theory. And most of the spells available to life debts can be learned wandless," I added begrudgingly.

His jaw fell open a second. His father gave him a cool glare, and Draco turned away and flushed.

"Which spells have you learned wandless?" Lucius demanded.

I recited the small list. Most were pragmatic household charms. (Bathilda only allowed me to use spells when their work was better than my own, no matter which took more time.) Then, there were the spells learned especially for glory of house, like the spell I'd used on the wine and water during dinner, spells used to help robe and disrobe traditional garments. Bathilda hadn't known what type of servant the Malfoy desired (and for some reason I didn't understand, couldn't ask) and had trained me as both house- and chambermaid.

"You will report the rest of your training and abilities tomorrow night in my study," Lucius ordered.

I bowed. I couldn't tell if he was impressed, though I thought it unlikely. Trained in so many different ways, there was always something that I hadn't studied that I should have, and Dumbledore had insisted on a proper education as well. I'd thought it fancy at the time (he was after all a professor), but now...

Lucius folded the Hogwarts letter and slipped it into his robe. A personally delivered, personally scribed invitation - why was it so important that I go to Hogwarts? I thought I'd escaped Dumbledore's schemes, but another rested before me, intent and unavoidable. I'd thought I'd outgrown confusion, but I still didn't know what to do, why I couldn't discard the ugly shackles of my youth for my shiny new ones.

o.O.o

In the middle of dinner Narcissa Malfoy spoke to me.

"Miss Potter, I don't believe you've visited the gardens yet."

I blinked, the Malfoy men staring at her like she'd gotten cabbage stuck in her teeth. Narcissa continued to stare at me serenely, waiting an answer.

"No, my lady," I answered.

"Draco," she called to her boy. "Why don't you take her outside for a bit?"

"Uh, sure. Yes, mother," he corrected hastily, wiping his mouth on napkin and standing, his meal only half finished.

I stared at her, looking somehow past her to the pocked glass window playing host to the sun's tepid rays.

_Outside_.

I didn't realize I'd spoken aloud until Draco stopped and stared at me. I swallowed and bowed my head, allowing him to lead me out of the dining hall.

In Bathilda's house, it had been impossible for me to step outside. Dumbledore explained it when I was younger, but I didn't really remember most of it. It had something to do with hiding and my cousin. Now, I wasn't sure why I had to stay inside in that cramped cottage.

When I came to Malfoy Manor, I was... amazed wasn't the right word (it needed more confusion and less happiness)... by the open space. There was so much room to walk, so much that went unused. The living quarters in Bathilda's house had been filled by books and scrolls, some even rotting with mold that I could not purge for fear of Bathilda's wrath. There was barely enough room to sit, and one had to move carefully not to cause avalanches.

(I had distinct memories of hearing the mountains fall in the night, Bathilda searching, for what I did not know. This was the first moment since I left that I wondered if she wouldn't kill herself on her own.)

In Malfoy Manor, I could look out the windows, and instead of road and house, there were fields. I had never imagined so much emptiness in the world. But while I stood at the verandas, I hadn't thought about stepping beyond. I supposed I'd been trained into that non-reaction, and I couldn't contemplate beyond it.

A house elf appeared when we neared the entrance. It offered a cloak that Draco rejected, a second following the first to open the heavy, stone framed doors.

I felt the inexplicable moment when I knew that I couldn't do this. A frightening cavern of darkness opened before me, as if the emptiness had swelled and wanted (could things like this even _want_) to take me. I staggered behind my lord, drawing short. The opening doors were horrifying, the spilled light sadistic.

Draco, easily as doffing gloves, stepped over the threshold, then looked at me and stepped over it again.

"Come on," he said, impatient and irritated.

My mouth dried, and I shook my head. I tried to take a step and failed, falling into shivers. I couldn't believe I was acting like this (_Stupid_ Rose), but I'd never prepared for the moment when I would have to do this. I cursed Dumbledore, who should have known.

"What's wrong with you?" Draco said, dragging me by the arm.

A horrible whimper escaped me, choking back a scream. I didn't mean to. Immediately, my heels dug in, refusing him.

I felt like an animal that had shit on the rug. Even if I logically understood that this was normal, my body was not listening. I wished someone would knock me around until it did.

But Draco showed compassion I never would have thought of him, slowing and staring at me in wild confusion.

"What's wrong?" he asked, this time understanding something unspeakable had formed in my mind.

I shook my head. "Nothing," I answered, ashamed that my voice quivered. I swallowed, and though I tried, I could not stop leaning away from the door and him.

Draco looked at the door. "Are you afraid of going outside?"

His voice was ripe with disbelief. Rightfully so. I wished I could have treated the situation like a joke right along side him.

"I've never... I've never _been_..."

"_Been_?" he said. He looked behind him. "The grounds?" he said incredibly. "The grounds? The entrance? What? _Outside_? You've never been _outside_ before?"

I nodded. He loosened his grip on my arm. Half my body shivered and drooped. For a long moment, he stared at me while I avoided gazing back. I couldn't think. If I could I would have feared him telling Lucius. I would have feared being dismissed. But those were only things that came later. Now I was just so disgusted by myself and relieved that Draco had stopped trying to drag me out the door.

Finally, he snapped his fingers, making me jump. A house elf appeared, which he gave clipped orders to. He turned back and took me by the shoulders. We went in the opposite direction of the entrance, turning around a corner in a stretch of lounges that would eventually lead to the apparation room.

The house elf returned, holding a black scarf. Giving me a daring look, he wrapped it around my head, blinding me. Rattled, I only curiously mused his intentions, sedately following the motions of his hands. Once I told him no light showed through the fabric, he knotted it and took me by the shoulders again.

"I want you to follow me."

I nodded to show I understood. Standing behind me, he led me about the manor, twisting my direction until I was lost, save his hands. I wondered if this was some sort of game, but he never spoke and neither did he leave me to crash into furniture or walls.

Suddenly, there was warmth on my body, and I knew what he'd done. He'd tricked me outside.

Immediately, I froze up, clogged on a scream. Even my bowels in rebellion. His hands tightened over my shoulder.

"Who do you belong to?"

I licked my lips. "You."

"And I want you to do this for me. You're still inside the manor. Do you believe me?"

He gave me a shake when I didn't immediately answer. "Are you calling me a liar?" he demanded with violence.

I shook my head. When I tried to step forward, my body still went back. I brushed his chest, his hands tightening to the point of pain.

"You're a worthless servant. If you can't even do this much," he sneered.

I waited for the moment when he'd toss me aside, too much trouble. When he'd abandon me out here. I might lose my mind.

It didn't come. He angrily continued bruising my shoulders, radiating a different heat than the summer.

_Maybe_... I thought and grasped hold of it. Using the methods that Dumbledore had taught me, I told myself that I was still inside the manor, behind windows, in stone. When my breathing calmed, Draco continued to lead me. It was hard to pretend that the ground had not changed from tile. Everything was different, the heat, the smell, the feel of the air, but I struck my mind blind, listening to my lord breathing close to my neck, his hands sometimes coaxing, sometimes tight with force. Like the mercury of a child. I imagined each touch a collar and sunk further into the realm of stone.

Eventually, something else changed. It was hard to decipher, but the most obvious shift was in sound. Where before I blocked out the wind and grass, I now heard the trickle of water. Draco bade me stop and slowly began to release my blindfold.

Like an untrained cur, I fought him, pressing my hands into his to keep the cloth fixed. I was so embarrassed by the reaction that I dropped my hands and clenched my jaw, vowing to ride the panic in silence.

It was mostly out of fear that I kept my eyes shut, but in hindsight, I would say it was something else as well. Draco had led me through the outside world, and I was never likely to forget it.

Finally, with unfounded stubbornness, I opened my eyes, quietly rather surprised that Draco hadn't harried me. At once, the open sky terrified me, but Draco quickly turned me and revealed the walls, a great structure that could be nothing but the manor. An inner courtyard. I'd come to no place like this in my wandering, but it was relatively small and private. And there were likely more nefarious secrets than a garden held by the stones of Malfoy manor.

Slowly and reluctantly, I calmed. I was contained. Nothing was here to consume me with its space. I opened my eyes again and actually saw the garden.

There was nothing of the grandeur I associated with the house of Malfoy. Vines crawled up solid, ancient columns, simple and cracked granite. They lent support at walkways long fallen, the stone crumbling and jagged. The ruins lay strewn carelessly among the lattice work, overrun with as many weeds as blossoms.

A small hopping path, infested with ragweed and dandelion, led to a statue and a pond. A young maiden, her hair wrapped in a tumbling coif, bent over the water, pouring a basin. She had the robes of a servant, wisps of hair escaping the coif, and her face was wonderfully demure, a kind tilt to her lips that spoke of happiness.

I raised my hand to her cheek. The stone was smooth and surprisingly warm, and I half-expected her to turn to me. Water continued to trickle out of the basin, neverending.

"She was an ancestor," Draco said, coming behind me. "She was also a servant."

I turned to him, my hand still resting on the girl's cheek. He glanced away, uncomfortable. "Father says it's the black secret. Every house has one," he said defensively. "The Malfoy patriarch was unforgiving and turned her to stone as she was emptying a basin into the river. When he died, her son brought her here, gave her this garden." He gestured around, and I wondered if he found its humbleness as gratifying as I did.

"What was her name? If I may ask," I added lately.

He grinned at me, the familiar spark of his sneer returning. "Allionya."

"Allionya," I repeated. I leaned up to whisper in her ear. "I hope you were happy, Lady Allionya. Thank you for sharing your garden with me." I paused then wrapped my arms around her neck, rising up to press my cheek intimately to hers. "I hope we do not share the same fate."

"What are you doing?" Draco asked warily.

I broke away. "Greeting her."

"I suppose she answered," he laughed at me.

I gave him an amused look. "Not yet."

He didn't appreciate it. Small insects flitted about the air, some landing in the pond to be swallowed by fish. Water spiders skirted the edge, dancing with legs thin as hair. Still shaky, I settled at Allionya's feet and started to slip off my shoes.

"What are you doing?" he asked again with more caution.

I pulled off my stockings. "I'm going to stick my feet in the water. Would care to join, my lord?" I offered offhandedly.

Sure enough, the water was cool, taking my mind from the sky. It perfectly contrasted the heat, which pressed against my long, dark clothes like a pervert's sweaty palms. I pulled my skirts up to midthigh, something sure to earn me a whipping from Bathilda and beckoned Draco closer.

This was a place for the forbidden, for formality to fail, and I did not regret my aloofness even if it gave me a headache, fascinated all the more by my young lord than ever before.

His attire was much cooler than mine. The thin crème shirt was not laced all the way, and I could see the rise of his collarbone and the delicate hollow of the base of his throat. The beige trousers were tucked into riding boots, which he had not changed out of even for dinner. There must have been a stable on the grounds. I knew his mother would have scolded him if he came to the table smelling of horse and sweat, but even if he bathed, he'd donned the boots again, as if to test his parents' grace.

I liked him. Inexplicably and unreasonably.

He sat on the other side of Allionya's feet, one arm resting on a cocked knee as he regarded me. I regarded the pool. Some unnamable breed of fish and adolescent tadpoles danced between dark films of scum, a poisonous green that reminded me of polyjuice. When I looked at the ground, it was easier to imagine the world had no infinity, was all edges and borders.

When Draco made no further move, I moved closer to him. He watched me pull his foot into my lap.

"What do you think you're doing now?"

"Removing your shoe," I said, conscious of the insolence in my voice.

His tone was wry, and he didn't pull his foot away. "Why?"

I smiled, working with the laces and did not look up. "So you can put your feet in the water."

He leaned back on his hands, his hair shining like barley in the sunlight. His eyes, though sharp, were rather kind, it seemed to me.

"And why would I want to do that?"

"Because the water's nice," I said, looking up as I finished with the laces. I smiled. "And cool."

His face was inches from mine, and I was brought back to the day in the library… and Lucius' warning. But Draco wasn't an idiot. If he thought I was trying to use him… But I couldn't, nor did I want to.

Hesitantly, I raised a hand to his cheek, just as I had touched Allionya. He was flushed in the summer heat, and my fingertips were naturally cool. I brushed my knuckles down his jaw line, content when he made no protest.

I had never touched anybody like this. I'd read plenty about things like it from Bathilda's old romance novels. Veela romance novels were of headier stock than bargain brand love stories so there was no reason why was I getting so breathless just from touching him. There was a hollow ache in my chest when he looked at me, like I had gotten a hook stretched between my lungs.

What did he see when he looked at me? Could he see the confusion, the mercurial uncertainty, or even the quiet longing in my eyes? I hoped he could because this was not a matter that I wished to hide.

"Now what are you doing?"

Fourth time. I smiled and withdrew my hand, letting my fingers linger over the skin around his mouth.

"Your pardon, my lord," I said in a tone that did not much match my words. "I got distracted."

I continued with his shoe, pulling it off. I didn't catch the look that he gave me, but I heard the snicker. He extended his other foot.

Allionya watched us the rest of the evening. We got into a small water fight, visible only by the small splatter pattern on his trousers. Like his father, he asked about what Miss Bathilda taught me. He was surprised to know that I actually had passed the NEWTS for Arithmancy and Ancient Runes like Dumbledore had said.

"What about the other classes?"

"I'm in seventh year of Potions and Herbology but it's hard to measure skill in Charms and Transfiguration when I don't have a wand."

He snorted and said something vulgar.

It seemed like night fell all too soon. Strangely, it was easier to pretend the night sky was a closed roof, pecked by the Malfoy's imported nuri-gnats. I looked over and found Draco's gaze was trapped in the stars. For a rare moment, I had caught him without a mask. His face had softened to a warm, ethereal glow, unguarded and enraptured. His eyes sparkled silver, this light like a reflection gleaned off metal shavings.

We had moved some time ago to the stone bench at the edge of the pool, and I was massaging his foot. My own were tucked beneath me into the folds of my skirt. I nearly jumped out of my skin when I felt a finger coil into my hair. He had leaned up, one arm slung over his knee and the other dangling a black lock on his pale hand.

His lips twitched. "What potion do you use in your hair?"

"I don't. It's a muggle device. Called a curling iron. Dumbledore put a spell on it to heat when I touch it."

He looked suspicious. "A muggle device?"

My hair was very dark against his finger, a bouncy curl.

Showing him, I said, "I curl my hair around heated metal and it retains its hold. Of course, usually most the buoyancy is gone by this time, but that's a simple spell too."

There was a subtle moment when revulsion turned to curiosity. "A muggle device."

I nodded. "Dumbledore's not completely useless. Nor are muggles."

He wound his hand further in my hair, moving his foot so than his knee crooked over my chest. "What precisely is the relationship between you and Dumbledore?"

Relishing the slightly possessive grip in my hair, I answered, "He's controlling, secretive, and demanding. And that bloody twinkle drives me insane." I turned my head. "But I've known him my whole life, and I care enough for him not to want him dead. Maybe maimed. Slightly. Sometimes. But not dead."

"I suppose he cares for you then," he said derisively.

I laughed. "Oh no, Master Draco. I'm an object to him. I believed that most people are."

His hand stilled in my hair. "Yet you still care for him?"

"He's a person, and he has his own way of caring," I hedged. I looked away. "He's never given me reason to hate him."

"He locked you up in a house for 17 years," Draco countered. The anger there surprised me, warmed me, in ways I had no right to be warmed.

I didn't answer. After a while, he continued fidgeting with my hair.

"I like your hair," he said suddenly. "Curled. It's nice."

I resolved to doll my hair up like this every day I saw him, until at last he was sick of it.

"Thank you, Master Draco."

Pink grew around his ears.

He coughed. "We should go back inside. I'm sure whatever Mother wanted to speak to Father about has ended."

I was hesitant to leave the garden, but I allowed Draco to rise and lead me out, blindfolding me once more. Before he tied the sash, my gaze lingered on Allionya, and I nodded in acknowledgement, wondering if it was possible, like my blindfold, for her to guide our steps in the outside world.


	4. Interlude: Through the Eyes of Family

Chapter 4: Through the Eyes of Family

Harry threw the book against the wall, making both Ron and Hermione jump. The sound it made was unsatisfying, dull to the shattering that he felt it deserved. A moment later, the book shredded itself.

"He had no right!"

"Harry," Hermione started softly, eyes darting to the volume.

"He had NO RIGHT!" he screamed. "She's living with the Malfoys! The Malfoys hate me! They hate me! They hate – they'll kill her!"

"You don't know th-" she tried again.

"It should have been me!" he yelled. His eyes glistened dangerously for a moment before he collapsed on the bed. He buried his head in his hands, already exhausting himself. "It should have been me."

Gently, Hermione sat beside him. "Harry" she said for the third time. "We don't know anything. The Malfoys are an old family. It would be dishonorable to… hurt their servants."

She sent Ron a look over his head.

"Yeah, mate," Ron said. Hermione glared at him.

"Yeah, the Malfoys have always been honorable," Harry said dryly into his hands. "Just look at Dobby."

They sat together awkwardly, no consolations.

"I'm glad it's her."

Harry stared up at his best friend with a look of betrayal, but Ron didn't back down.

"I don't know her. You don't know her either, mate. I'm…" He sighed. "It's not that I"m happy she's there, but at least it's not you, you know."

"We don't know what's happening there," Hermione added. "But we would know if it had been you. They would have killed you, Harry. At least she has a chance," she said, gentle but firm.

Harry was silent, but he couldn't hear what they were saying.

"She's my family," he whispered, the word adding gloss to his throat that he didn't want to contemplate. He closed his eyes. "She's my family. What am I supposed to do?"

The two looked at one another. "Dumbledore said he convinced the Malfoys to let her go to Hogwarts," Ron reminded him. "So you'll see her soon. It's only a month."

Hermione touched circles on his back. "You just have to wait, Harry. Please. There's nothing you can do right now. But Dumbledore will protect her."

"Harry?"

Remus Lupin stood in the doorway. With a look, he beckoned Ron and Hermione out of the room. They nodded, parting with evanescent touches. Remus sat awkwardly on the edge of the Harry's bed. The boy didn't move.

"I just finished talking to Albus." Harry looked up. "He said she wasn't mistreated. In fact, she seemed more annoyed by his visit than anything else," he said in a light tone, his voice failing to win Harry's smile.

"Harry," he sighed sadly. "There are laws against the abuse of servants. Laws that apply specifically to cases like this, and Albus insured that she knew of them."

"Malfoy never much abided by laws," Harry responded forlornly.

"He'll abide by this one," Remus said.

The steel in his voice caught him off guard, and Harry was forced to remember that Remus was a werewolf. Remus laid a hesitant arm across his shoulders.

"She's not the only family you have."

Though it probably wasn't what he meant, Harry thought at once of the Dursleys and how he never had to step in their house again. He thought about Ron and the Burrow and the pumpkin ice cream that Mrs. Weasley had made the night before.

He let himself fall against Lupin's chest. It startled the man, settling into an awkward half-embrace. It was the first real moment they had shared since Sirius' death, an approachable subject to the both of them. Harry clung tighter, and the awkwardness flailed and died. Remus' arm enveloped him.

"There, there, cub. We'll protect her. You have enough to worry about. Without... this."

Harry separated from him, and Lupin raised a hand to his unruly locks, smiling.

The twins burst in through the door.

Smiling, one chided, "Harry, Harry, Harry."

"You should know. We're."

"your family too. And that's."

"Why we've decided to make you."

"An honorary Weasley."

"The black-haired Weasley if you will," the second twin ended, grinning.

Harry sat there, stunned, still trying to follow the sentence. "What?"

They pushed Lupin over to gather on either side of him.

"C'mon there, mate."

"No reason to be dense."

"Only need one Ronald."

"Oi!" came an indignant shout from the hall.

The twins leaned into him, chiming together. "So welcome to the family, Harry Weasley!"

Ginny stepped into the room to give him an even stare. "This does not, however, make you my brother."

Harry blushed, succeeding in setting the twins off in gales of "Ginny and Harry sitting in a tree. K-I-S-S-I-N-G."

Harry was slightly shocked that the song broached both worlds. However, not so much so that any of the redness of his face faded. Ginny dispelled them with a glare. They clamped their mouths shut, scurrying from the room to serenade the ballad at an approvable distance.

In the chaos of becoming Harry Weasley, Harry didn't have the heart to brood. He couldn't tell them that although he appreciated the effort, another part of him felt separate from them.

He was sure that none of these people, with their matching red hair and twin grins, could understand the allure of this lost blood relative. Even Hermione, who went home every Christmas. There was a desire in him, bone deep and heavy, to see this Rose, to know her. Where had she been? What was she like? Did she suffer any of the legacy that held him captive?

His eyes drifted and caught Lupin's, who was sitting, quietly secluded from the madness. There was something feral in his yellow stare that Harry found instantly recognizable. The moment between them was almost tangible, like he could reach out and touch it. The werewolf knew what he was thinking like it was written on the air around them.

Loneliness.

And Harry had never felt more thankful than in that moment that Remus was with him. For possibly the first time in his life, James had not trusted his friend, the_werewolf_, and had let Peter be secret keeper. Even now, Remus felt that knife, the pain of rejection, and he knew that it was because he was _different_ that James and Lily had died.

Harry, of course, had never seen it like that. He had never known that Remus felt this way, the self-hatred that Harry was all too familiar with.

Legally, Sirius was his godfather, even in death, and Harry loved him because he was his father's best friend. He loved that he had a connection with somebody, but Sirius had only ever seen his father when he looked at him. He saw James, a friend, a playmate.

Remus Lupin saw Harry, had always seen Harry. Harry Potter was many things – not least of all The Boy Who Lived – but he was not his father.

o.O.o

"Draco, you're in late."

Draco paused from passing the study. His mother was reading an old journal on the couch, the black leather emphasizing the paleness of her clothes and skin. The smell of sherry and mint, something he only associated with her, carried briefly into the hall, evanescent as moths. After a short thought, he entered the room. She didn't look up from her book as she turned the page.

"Mother," he greeted politely.

She looked up then, a small smile on her unmarked lips and a knowing glint in her dark eyes.

"You were out with the Potter girl."

He shifted slightly. "I showed her the garden. Was that not what you asked?"

Narcissa Malfoy did not smirk, but she came very close. She looked back at the journal, her lack of argument pointing out the flaws in his own quite superbly.

"You should be careful with her," his mother said to the book. "She is Dumbledore's girl."

Draco tried not to glare, which resulted in an uncomplimentary sulk. "I am not a fool, Mother."

Her voice was suddenly hot and dangerous. "Of course you aren't."

With a sigh, she abandoned the book entirely, and Draco shifted under her full attention.

"That girl is untrustworthy," Narcissa said. "Your father will not abide disloyalty in his house."

Draco eyed her uneasily. "What are you suggesting?"

Narcissa's stare had all the potency of a black widow as she gazed at her son. Draco was forced to remember – as if he could forget – that this was Bellatrix's sister. A nee Black and a Malfoy as well.

"You know of the pact between servant and master."

Draco drew his brows together. "You would have her bed your own husband?"

Narcissa looked truly shocked for a second before she let out a small feminine laugh, hiding it politely in the cover of her slender hand.

"She's only a servant, Draco."

So this was why Narcissa wanted both of them out of the house, he thought. To discuss this with his father. For all Draco knew, he could be cementing the pact right now. How would his father react to such a thing? Of course, it was logical, but Draco had never known his father to seek out another. Mostly because he had never found someone to match his mother.

And never, to his knowledge, had his mother enjoyed less conventional fare.

Would his father have raged at the degradation, or did it really matter at all? Because it was little more than insurance?

Draco was suddenly struck with the strong conviction that he didn't want his father's hands on Rose. Unsure of what to do with such a thought, he did not voice a reply to his mother. Narcissa watched the emotions pass through his face with interest. After a while, the steel in her eyes softened, and she was no longer looking at the Malfoy heir but her son, her only child.

She rose languidly off the couch. Her long white robes slid down, following her movements like a skein of cream.

"Draco," she spoke softly.

The muted glow of the candle spun into her hair, curling faintly at the end of her shoulder. Draco knew what that informality meant. Only he and his father had seen her like this. Until she had taken the marriage veil. Draco wondered if it meant the same thing when Rose had removed her stockings.

"Maybe you should talk to your father," Narcissa Malfoy said. "This _Rosalind__Potter_" – name spoken like a taste of quail on a cultured tongue – "is not like her cousin."

She gave a gentle chuckle, low with the age of a woman's knowledge. "She reminds me a bit of Severus."

She chuckled again at Draco's expression, Her eyes sparkling like cold diamond.

"She is not an ugly child," she said. She turned away, smiling indulgently. "And there are worse places to hold your attention, my son."

She returned to the settee, sprawling out like a queen on her throne. Draco watched her, as always a small child in her presence, almost as large as the world. Respectfully, he bowed, her lack of attention as clear a dismissal. It would take hours for him to sort through the nuances in her voice, her words half the puzzle that made his existence in the manor. He loved his mother, but it was a love full of tripwire, this time filled with the face of Rosalind Potter.

Sadly, his dreams that night were not hints to fill the void of his mother's words but the press of his father's hands, filling other forbidden voids, ones he wished he could forget.


	5. Diagon Alley

Chapter 5: The Trip to Diagon Alley

Diagon Alley hosted a masquerade of faces and people, anxiously shuffling between half-stocked stores. I had been raised by the old fashioned hand of a woman who favored the Victorian era. This world was as foreign as the sky. I saw hardly any of the tradition that had been beaten into my skull. I could not tell the married women from the unmarried, the prostitutes from the scions. Everything was a confusing clash of styles, half wizard, half muggle, into some strange conglomerate that didn't seem to make a point for either customs.

I'd often heard Bathilda complain that no one adhered to tradition any more. I'd acknowledged the quibble without understanding it. Now I did.

I was struck by how ugly this world seemed. I could find none of the things I'd learned to admire. To make matters worse, the way people regarded Master Malfoy was unbelievably crude. The fear I could understand, but the disgust was a new, unwanted beast.

I too was the subject of intrusive stares. Whispers behind hands. Flinty eyes. I didn't like it.

Though Master Draco continued to try to acclimate me, I was still ever aware of the emptiness. If I thought about it, I could feel the stretch, a pulling on my limbs that seemed somehow deep in my nerves. Like I was a creature of strings at the precipice of being torn apart. As subtly as I could, I moved closer to Master Malfoy, wondering if I could disappear into his shadow.

The stores themselves were slack-jawed and old, holding the scent of use and magic like a second skin. Lucius had sent a house elf to gather the books I required, so the first shop I entered was for a wand. (I still could not fathom calling such a thing my own.) Its age seemed to accent the blackened quality of the design, like a living scorch mark.

The bell on the door _ding_-ed as we entered, and a wizened man appeared behind the counter, brushing dust off his lapels, the white hair of his balding head parted to either side. Pushing up his glasses, he addressed my master.

"Ah, Mr. Malfoy. Blackthorn with dragon heart string. 11 ½ inches." He smiled. "What can I do for you?"

Lucius was hardly impressed. "My ward requires a wand."

Obligingly, I stepped forward and bowed my head. The man's eyes widened. "You've never been in here before."

I looked to Lucius for permission to speak. He tilted his head, the gesture a hawk might make. I turned back to the shopkeep. "No, sir."

Curiosity made his face considerably more virile. Unlike the droves out in the street, he had no fear to his gaze, as merry as a traveling buccaneer. He ignored Lucius.

"Have you been to another maker?"

I lifted my brow. I had only studied wandlore peripherally, but I knew that wands marked wizards. Forever, they bore the stamp of ownership.

"No, sir," I answered nonetheless.

He stared at me a long moment, until Master Malfoy made a subtle gesture of annoyance and he backed away. He disappeared around a corner. I watched him, somehow feeling like I was watching a timepiece. He moved about his shop with the familiarity of a pendulum, consigned to a world of hands and numbers.

He reemerged with five narrow boxes, stacking them on the only space on the counter not covered in loose, crinkling parchment, making a sound not unlike fire. I stared at them, feeling no more than I would for any common stick.

"Well, go on," he urged. "Give it a wave."

With a polite frown, I picked up one polished black. I didn't like it. Unlike the master, I could tell neither what wood it came from nor what heart it held. I felt like I was holding an unfriendly beetle. Obligingly, I waved it. The glass in the windows made a high-pitched squeal, bulging. Thankfully, the wards held, and the shimmer of pressure subsided. I put the wand back. He snatched the second box from me before I could touch it, scurrying out and returning with two more.

The thick brown one seemed to like me even less so and knocked me into Lucius when I started to wave it. My master grunted, catching me, even as he was forced to brace on his back leg. The shopkeeper paled and quickly snatched the wand away.

And so it went on with the third – the shopkeeper's hair caught fire – and the fourth – my hair caught fire – the sixth – to this day those marks remain on the shelf – the eleventh, the fifteenth, and the twenty-first. I don't know who was more frustrated, the wandmaker or Lucius.

I stood, a fifteen minute endeavor having turned into an hour's labor. No matter how much I wished Lucius would have dropped the matter, I did not speak, trying to hide my growing discontent. This had only fueled my resolve. I was not meant to have a wand.

The keeper ran a hand over his balding, burnt scalp, ignoring Lucius' scowl. "I don't understand," he said, walking around the most recent mess.

Unicorn hair. Ugh.

Suddenly, the old man jerked, his eyes staring past us. He swallowed audibly and walked out, even when the glare Lucius threw him became dangerous. He returned with a derelict box, gnawed at the edges, likely by a passing rodent. The dust was stained in, creating an array of displeased ghosts after he brushed it off. Pale, he set it on the empty counter, the papers having long since been thrust about the room.

"I did not make this one," was all he said.

Curious, I approached. There was... something different about it, though that could as just as likely been the keeper's mood. I lifted the lid. It was a slender and white, possibly made of ivory. The cotton beneath it was moldy and eaten, stained ugly green and yellow, making the creamy white of the wand seem purer than it was.

It was beautiful, in perhaps a grotesque way. Unlike all the others, I wanted to touch it. The handle was small, as if for a child. It had no discernible pattern or grip except for the imprint of a palm, ridges where the fingers tightened and a valley for the thumb to rest. As if it had been sculpted from clay. The length was also short, the tip blockheaded and pitted like a baby's tooth.

Stories and lore burst into life beneath my skull, but I could recall no tale that featured a wand like this. Malformed and dainty and all the more alluring for it.

_Mine_.

It was in my hand before I realized that I had picked it up. Yes, I thought, caressing the sides. Yours.

"Which is it?" Lucius asked.

The maker was still pale. The curiosity that stoked his gaze was vacant, and he refused to look at him.

"8 inches," he said and dutifully continued. "Dementor bone and thestral hair."

"There is no such thing," Lucius sneered.

The man swallowed nervously, but he still shook his head. "That is how it was passed to me."

"Where did you receive it?" Lucius demanded.

"To my knowledge, it has never left the isles. If it has had previous masters, I do not know their families. We do keep archives," he said when Master Malfoy looked ready to curse him. "I do not know who made it, and neither did my master. That is all I can tell you, Master Malfoy. It was picked up from a trail a long time ago and has been waiting for as long as we know."

Waiting, hmm, I thought, looking at the pretty thing. Like me. I looked up at my master, asking if he'd let me keep it. Whether weary of the store and its unhelpful owner or, like me, curious of the strange artifact, he turned and paid for the goods.

Ollivander asked only for half the price of all his other pieces, claiming that since he hadn't made it, he could not demand compensation. He was merely the storehouse. Lucius sneered again and turned on his heel.

I bowed my head, clutching the wand to my breast. After we left the store, I would slip it into my sleeve, where it made a perfect fit against my forearm. Already, it had soaked up the warmth from my flesh, neither alive nor dead I thought.

So pretty.

I wondered what wand my cousin had gotten.

o.O.o

The rest of the trip was decisively less dramatic. Brownie had purchased all of my books, and they were scheduled to be delivered to my rooms in Malfoy Manor, as were the mandatory potion ingredients and the not so mandatory expensive potion set and reinforced steel and gold cauldron sets that Lucius had purchased for me. Currently, the blond was leading me to a robe shop across from the owl emporium.

Madam Malkin was a middle-aged witch with a prim brunette bun at the back of her head, barely peppered with silver. She was a tall woman with elegant hands. The dress she wore would have made Bathilda proud, clipped punctually at every point where cloth met skin.

"Mr. Malfoy," she greeted neutrally. "What may I do for you?"

I stepped from his shadow, bowing again. She gave me a once-over and beckoned me to approach. I was pushed onto the pedestal and measured. It felt much like being regarded by a butcher, but I resolved not to squirm, staring blankly ahead.

Lucius was able to settle in a dark leather seat this time and seemed much more content for it. He laid his cane on the arm, crossing his legs and partaking of a small glass of pirot noir from an assistant as he waited.

Miss Malkin was professional and never spoke directly to me. It didn't take long to get my Hogwarts robes, but both Lucius and Madam Malkin felt inclined to present me with a new wardrobe.

I stripped off my outer robes. The dress I wore buttoned at the neck, undecorated as the custom among life debts. The dress was dark mauve with a modest empire waist that fell to just above my brown boots. Those too I discarded, standing in my shift and hose.

Madam Malkin put a finger on her chin, pearls in her ears. I stared at them for a second, amazed by the holes and wondering which ritual they belonged to. She took a few more measurement, taking my bust and waist.

"What style would you like, Mr. Malfoy?"

Lucius folded his hands over his mouth and braced his elbows on the arms of the chair. His stare was focused on me, smoldering metal.

"I think I'll leave it to my charge. What style do you prefer, Miss Potter?"

Miss Malkin gasped, for a moment losing tact. I watched my lord, worrying the tests in his words between my teeth like diamonds.

"I am content with whatever my lord finds suitable," I said, not bothering to feign modesty. My gaze went direct, feeding on his desire to feel out weakness, like a cane stabbing snow for pitfalls.

The corner of his lip turned. It was faint, like the crawl of a gnat on flesh. His eyes were darkly hooded.

"Of course," he said, standing. "Owl me the measurements, Roberta. One set will do. Basic wear."

He bade a house elf carry the parcels to the Manor as I dressed and stepped down. Madam Malkin accepted his credit woodenly, her smile polished. Her gaze lingered on me, and I stared coolly back. She seemed startled for a moment before a mask, worthy of any businesswoman, slid carefully into place.

Lucius shepherded me down another alley. The light muted, the stone walls tightly stacked, comfortably claustrophobic (though, by some expanding spell, the customers were never forced to touch each other). My steps in response calmed. The stores had no awnings, no sidewalks, just a continuous labyrinth, where the smooth sandstone of Diagon Alley blended, in the way only magic can accomplish, to greywacke.

A barely visible sign heralded Knockturn Alley. Here, we turned into a grate and flew through underground currents to another part of England with the same greywacke stone and muted sunlight. Other than a meek sensation of travel, there was no indication that we had moved. Purposefully disorienting, I wondered.

The alley panned, opening to a circle of stone that branched into three separate directions. These had no signs, likely known only by monikers to specific, nefarious inhabitants. The stores' windows were mucky, the faded lettering indecipherable. Lucius chose none of the forks, striding to the center store that was labeled with only an antiquely monogramed A. As I approached, I slowly made out the dressing behind the window.

As I suspected, it was a clothing store. In the glass, I could make out the influences of Bathilda's time, a certain stitch, a cuff here. But until now, I had not realized how much even her style had been influenced by muggles. She came from a family of bards turned historians who'd refused the book purging edict. With no courts to romance, no kings to glorify, they'd been cast aside, stripped of rank centuries ago and ostracized to the rim of society. Of course, the main wealth of the wizarding world, if not its literature, would be denied her.

I gaped, not daring to press my greasy hands to the glass.

And for once, Lucius smiled, wolf-like and pleased. The door opened for him leading to musty darkness. Eyes round, I followed, for the first time since leaving this morning, in awe of the world I'd sacrificed so very much for.

o.O.o

Harry paused on the final step, listening to the conversation in the kitchen.

"You mean she really is a Potter!"

Harry didn't recognize the voice, but he could guess the subject matter. Ginny, Hermione, and Ron stopped behind him.

"Yes, Roberta," Dumbledore said calmly.

"But she was with Lucius Malfoy! Of all people, Albus!"

"Roberta."

They heard a loud huff and footsteps, but they didn't near the door. Dumbledore said something but it was too soft to hear.

"Nothing," Roberta said. "He came for measurements for her school robes and left. Albus, what was she wearing?"

His voice was honestly startled when he answered. "Whatever do you mean?"

"I recognized a seamstress' work when I see one. That pattern hasn't been used in ages. Where have you been keeping her?"

"Roberta," he said in an abused voice. "I can assure you. I know nothing of and had no hand in her fashion habits."

There was a tense silence before Madam Malkin walked out of the kitchen. She caught Harry's gaze and paused. A decision came over her features, and she went from the fireplace to the stairs. Standing on the final step, Harry was just able to reach the her eyes.

"Mr. Potter, I presume you have some knowledge of that conversation," she said primly.

Not bothering to deny it, he nodded. Her lips tensed, following the wrinkles in her brow as she threw aside another irritated glance.

"She looked well," she said. "Quite well in fact," she said as of not able to believe it. "I don't know where Dumbledore's been hoarding her, but I can tell a strict upbringing when I see one. Life debt or not," she said with the severe look of elderly women, "she's the last of your house. Look after each other. Nothing is stronger than blood."

He could tell the last bit bothered Hermione, but he ignored the glare behind him.

"Thank you, Miss Malkin," he said, rather shaken.

She gave a crisp nod, as if washing her hands of the matter. Sending a last glare to the kitchen door, she stepped to the fireplace, shouted the name of her shop and was gone.

o.O.o

"Lucius? Are you just getting back?"

Narcissa was reading over papers in the study, sitting behind Lucius' large desk. Parchment was scattered beneath her pen, and she hadn't even noticed that her hair was turning wavy, as if often did when she forgot to perform the perming spell every few hours. Which meant that she had been working for a while.

Lucius strode into the study without answer. He opened the cherry wood cabinet along the bookcase, removing a square glass and a bottle of Russian scotch. Narcissa eyed it skeptically before regarding her husband. To his credit, he did not down the drink, instead waiting for two chips of shaved ice to clink to the bottom of the glass before swirling it around and sipping.

"What is this about?" Narcissa asked.

Lucius waited as the alcohol soaked onto his tongue. It burned righteously on the way down his throat.

"Nothing, Cissa," he said, tasting the echo of its ting. "It's just the Potter child." He studied his drink a moment as Narcissa wisely remained quiet. "She confounds me," he said at last, half intrigued half irritated.

She set down her quill, folding her hands beneath her chin to allow him to continue.

"She's an enigma, Cissa. She acts like the children in the old tales. In fact, it's like she breathes differently. I can't tell if it's refreshing or... insult." He took another sip. "We were in Ollivander's for nearly an hour."

"An hour?" she said in disbelief. Ollivander had some trouble too finding her a wand. Unlike Bella, who'd been matched almost instantly, it had taken several tries for young Narcissa Black to match with her rowan, a horrendously Light wood for a Dark family, and manticore core. She could not imagine it taking longer than half that time.

He turned his drink in his hand, the amber reflecting the light like a river stone. "Dementor bone. Thestral hair."

Narcissa reared up in surprise. "Ollivander would never."

"He claimed to have inherited it," he said with a cast of shadow in his eyes.

Narcissa shook her head. "She sat at Dumbledore's knee. She can't be Dark enough." Not to mention she had never heard of such a thing. Wands had wood and cores. It was unreasonable to have a wand made of bone.

"Has she used it?"

"Not as of yet," Lucius said with certainty. "I have forbidden her until I have my office properly warded. She has yet to prove she can even handle a wand, much less one of such ambiguity."

Narcissa nodded. A moment of silence few, comfortable between people long accustomed to either other's stillnesses.

"She acts like a pureblood," Lucius said.

"She is," Narcissa said quietly. "No matter her status, that remains."

Lucius, bright boy, caught the current beneath her words and gave her a cool glare.

"What are you doing?" he asked with all the smoothness of ripe wine.

"I'm reviewing the renovation details on the Saragossa villa," she said indulgently. "The workers destroyed the your grandmother's rug, and the grout cracked in the walls when that incompetent warder Dienzo hired tried to connect the apparation room. I'm fixing it," she said, decisive and merciless as a general.

That at least satisfied him. He always seemed to enjoy when she complained about people that were not him or his ancestors.

Just when he felt safe, she added, a curl of spite in her words, "Have you thought of your answer?"

The ice cracked in his glass. For a moment, she delighted in the way his composition slipped. Those who likened Lucius to marble were idiots. He was the most hot-blooded person, other than her sister, that she had ever met, and he seemed incapable of controlling even the slightest of emotions when he was faced with something he did not like. So much like the child she'd met when she was only eight.

There was never anyone Narcissa found that baited her sadistic need to expose weakness more or better than her husband.

He met her stare, reading all the worst and best of themselves in the reflection. The moment when he considered cursing her passed. He brushed off the last of the scotch, leaving the house elf to replace it. He left Narcissa alone in the study with her notes and her smirk, victory-sweet.


	6. The Pact

Warning: sex

Chapter 6: The Pact

While wandering, I'd found a small room on the top floor, beside the observatory. No doubt some ancestor had been a brewer or owned a brewer and fashioned the room for him. It was Spartan, unused, with only a line of tables and a neglected chute in the ceiling. With the elves' assistance, I cleared the taps and opened the chute, scrubbing the rust from the hinges.

Setting my new collection along the tables, I began the possess of cleaning them for use. Master Draco had let me take from the underbrush from the forest on the western grounds, and packing leaves into the pewter cauldron, it took me only a few minutes to spawn the fire I needed. I placed the lid over the small smolder and set to work washing the gold and silver cauldrons with snow water.

I hummed while I worked. In Bathilda's house, brewing had to be conducted cautiously. Her house was not equipped for handling the inevitable explosions or even airing the fumes. I'd wormed a small space in the basement and worked amid the constant worry that I'd set someone on fire or spill a concoction on a priceless scroll she'd forgotten about.

For the first time, I could appreciate the clean _space_ of the manor. Since it wouldn't hurt, I thrust my body against the latch and threw open the windows, letting in the sun. At the awful squeak, a house elf appeared, bashing her head, and began cleaning the hinges. Eventually, her mutters drifted off and the two of us worked in silence in the forgotten room.

Before long, I had finished, sweeping the ashes into the hearth to be incinerated. I'd worked up a sweat wrestling with the fire and in the summer heat but couldn't be bothered for it. I knew nothing in the manor was mine, but this little space felt like I could belong to me. I sat against the wall and pictured herbs hanging from the rafters. It was so horribly empty. I could get the elves to install a cabinet. Master Malfoy wouldn't mind buying vials, not if I filled the stores. It would save him purchasing unnecessary items.

Alright, I decided. It couldn't hurt to talk to him about it. I brushed off my apron, and after a moment's deliberation, hung it on a crooked nail.

I had to make three treks back and forth, but I at last got the cauldrons settled in my room, grateful for the closet the elves had kindly expanded for me. Kneeling on the floor, I thumbed vials. Most kits came with snow water, but I had no alcohol to purify glasses and rods. I set them back in the stand and smiled, crossing my arms over my knees.

I hadn't thought much about Hogwarts. I tried to keep it distant. Though I was still dubious about my wand (no matter how lovely it was), I could anticipate brewing without shadow.

I wasn't good, if only because I lacked practice. I fancied myself rather pragmatic. I liked practical things, like sewing and cleaning, and I liked potions because they were so _useful_.

And I needed to feel useful.

For some reason, the thought made me somber. I closed the closet.

I unleashed my hair. I smelled like smoke and oil, I thought, stripping out of my clothes. They disappeared before they met the floor. The tub filled with steam and water as soon as I touched the rim.

Malfoy Manor was such an old place. I wondered if I had become self-sustaining. Some instances, like the ramshackle potion room, rivaled with the intuitiveness of self-filling tubs, and I couldn't decide whether the object was magical or the house was intelligent enough to fulfill unspoken requests.

I stepped into the tub and sighed as it burned my skin pink. The water that sloshed over the edge was banished before it hit the floor and refilled to my neck. God, I loved the Malfoys. I laid in it a moment, getting acquainted with the heat and pulling my hair over the edge to curl down to the floor. Only when my skin started to prune did I take the sponge and bathe.

The cleansing potion held the scent of vanilla, not something I would have chosen but irrelevant. After a while, I picked up my hair and sunk below the surface. It wrapped around me in a river, likely to strangle me if I let it. Sometimes I wished I could cut it, but I'd never worked up enough nerve. (Not to mention it was the only rebellion I possessed against Bathida, who thought life debts should be more modest.) When I could hold my breath no more, I surfaced, gasping. Steam was rising around me, making me nauseas.

Sitting on the toilet seat, I patted my hair with a towel (bloody fluffy enough to be a cloud). I was wringing the last droplets of water from my hair when something tapped my door. Flummoxed, I made a quick check of my internal clock, far passed the hour to be called upon. On the last minute, I grabbed a robe and, belting it at my waist, and opened the door.

Draco stood there, a pale sheen to his face. There was tightness in the cords of his throats that told me this was not a leisure visit (as if he'd come here and not summon me instead).

"My lord, what is it?" I asked, glancing down the hall. It was dark, revealing no pursuers, even if they could get through the wards.

Draco pushed into my room. I stared after him but closed the door. This was highly inappropriate. One did not parade in the nude in front of one's lords. My hair was still wet for goodness sake. I teased impropriety but this was much even for me.

Draco was still in his daywear (thank Morganna), but he'd doffed his outer robes, revealing his shirt and trousers. I'd see him in them before, but this somehow felt different.

"Master Draco?" I called when he didn't speak.

He made a small like a frustrated beast.

"My father's coming."

I didn't understand. It must have showed on my face because Draco growled and moved as if to grab me. "He wants to perform the Pact."

Oh.

I smiled tensely. Of course I knew it. Sometimes, since life debts were often only accounted between enemy families, a lord or mistress wanted to insure a subject's loyalty. Life debts could not make Unbreakable Vows, and they unearthed a ritual. It bound a life debt to an individual, usually the househead, and made betrayal against that person physically impossible.

It was powerful magic and required the subject to be willing, much like the way lords marked their servants. I was prepared to make it the moment I stepped into this house, but I found it interesting that Draco was here now, warning me.

Lucius would have sent an elf to fetch me. In fact, I seriously doubted he would be crude enough to send his son.

"Do you think I'll run?" I asked.

He clenched his fists, a wildness in his face. His hand came up and grabbed my throat, but the next moment, he'd thrown it away, and stood panting, glaring at the floor. I watched him and did not understand the emotions in my own breast. Other than the kiss in the library, we'd share a few chaste gestures. His lips in my hair, a lingering brush as he trained me to sit outside between the trees without cringing in fear.

"Mast-" My voice fell apart, and my step forward shattered.

With unrestrained violence, he grabbed me, jerking me forward and into his chest. His lips missed mine, and his jaw cracked against my cheek. Unbothered, he sucked below my eye then found a trail to my mouth.

"You're mine," he said.

It was the voice of an animal, rough and angry, but it was only a posture. I heard the cry beneath it, not a claim but the plea of a child, finding something he wanted unexpectedly stolen. It was in the shiver of his hands if not his voice, the way he clung to me as if in fear.

I was entranced by it. That I could be so precious, even if it was fleeting. For a moment, I was so close to holding him. I wanted to. I wanted to accept his regard, but I couldn't. I was not free to do so.

"I will accept your father, my lord."

Draco jerked me back. "Do you love him?" he demanded, enraged.

My eyes widened and I laughed. I couldn't help it.

"Of course not, Master Draco. He's... Well, he's not someone I could ever love. He's my master. I need only obey him."

His hands tightened on my shoulders. Then, he flung me aside and made for the door. As soon as he touched the handle, he turned around again.

"Are you really going to do this? Like you're nothing but a whore," he spat.

I forgave him, since he did not know what he was saying.

"Lucius Malfoy is my lord. I'll do what he thinks is necessary."

Draco grabbed the lamp at my stationary and threw it. It shattered on the wall, trailing oil. I watched it stain, the floor now littered with glass, and looked back at Draco. The rage had not abated in his face. Only the desperation of a trapped hare had surfaced.

"What do you want, Master Draco?"

He glared at me then glanced away as if he thought it dangerous to do so.

"I don't want you here."

Liar, I thought.

"What do you want, Master Draco? Would you like me to refuse? Would you like me to be thrown out? Do you think Lucius Malfoy would suffer a spy in his house? Do you think that's what I am?"

"I don't want him to touch you!" he shouted, covering his ears.

Silenced, I could not move for the glass. I could only watch him. How did it come to this, I don't know. I did not think his interest in me so strong. That he would defy his own father. I didn't know what to do. There was no ritual for this.

"Do you want me?"

He looked up. Shame crossed his face, and he didn't answer. My chest hurt. This was stupid. Draco made me so stupid.

I grunted, pissed. "You put glass all over the floor and I can't move."

He jerked his head up, eyes wide. He looked at the floor, as if he'd just noticed.

"You have to come get me," I said, irritated while he just stared dumbly.

Obediently, he came, crunching glass beneath his heels. I touched his shoulders, and he lifted me up, setting me on the bed.

"Honestly," I huffed, brushing his hair back into place. His eyes rode down my robe, which had parted when he moved me. I didn't bother fixing it.

Before I could speak (maybe that was better), his fingers moved passed the fabric, cupping my waistline. I shivered, his fingertips cold. His eyes met mine.

Was this alright? Sitting together, I couldn't think of the consequences of this. There were worlds and worlds of excuses that fell apart like raveled thread. I felt like I couldn't hold my thoughts together. They swam and teased and spawned in unreachable places in my brain. I watched Draco's eyes go glassy, and when he leaned forward to kiss me, I was already breathing through my nose, my eyes shut.

What the bloody hell was I supposed to do with my hands? Was touching his neck more comfortable? Was I allowed to touch his hips?

Thoughts flickered in and out of life behind my eyes. Brilliant and brief as starbursts. He pushed me backwards and I took my feet off their awkward hovering from the floor, toes brushing the coolness of my pillows. The robe parted for all but that slim cord, sliding down my arms.

Something pulsed between my thighs, jerking from my belly. So that was carnal pleasure, I wondered. Felt… less whimsical than I imagined. It was more straining than I imagined. Even now, the instinct that I was doing something horrible wrong lingered. And not only because this was utterly _stupid_.

I didn't even realize that I was shaking until Draco pushed up.

"You're a virgin."

I bite my tongue, my first response rude. "Yes."

A glimmer and a shadow passed through his eyes. "And you would have bed my father."

I frowned. "What does that have to do with it?"

He shook his head. His hand moved between us, and suddenly, I'd thrust my head back, bending my body, an unvoiced scream in the back of my throat. My hands scrambled like headless birds, finding no purchase anywhere. Draco smiled and watched me make an arse of myself, stroking his wrist.

Finally, I managed to grab him and throw him off, but my limbs would not stop trembling. He pulled his shirt over his head and climbed back over me, grinning at my shaken glare. He kissed me, coaxing my thigh over his back. Hot and on a fine line between excited and panicked, I pulled my other leg over him and tried to forget how horrible I was as this and the unexpected vulnerability it exposed.

"Hush," Draco coaxed gently, laying his lips on my neck.

I had not forgotten the feeling of his fingers and made an undecided thrust. For a moment, I wondered what I looked like. I was tempted to speak (though my throat was too dry). Because this felt strange rather than nice or thrilling. And really I _should_ because Lucius was coming and what the hell was Draco doing and why the bloody hell was I letting him.

Draco's muscles tightened and I felt him mutter something in my hair. Then, something brushed against me, and with a thrust, something else popped and it bloody hurt. I almost slapped him, kicking with my knees, but he grunted and bore it and sucked on the hollow in my neck. It was such an _obvious_ distraction, but I caved anyway and let my legs fall back around him, squirming in discomfort.

He touched my forehead, panted, hips twitching. "Good," he mumbled. "Good."

Then, he thrust, and I lost the specter of pain. Bloody strange is what it was, still was, shooting tingles and tendrils where they certainly weren't supposed be. I squirmed again, fighting between whines and hysterical giggles. I clutched his shoulders, folding my legs around his thighs and settling in the weird sensations until I had only the urge to moan.

He quickened, and I snapped my hips in response, even if it cut the rhythm. I climaxed quickly, still clinging, and he followed a few moments later, half-collapsed atop me. The room was filled with panting, skin soaking in sweat that I hadn't notice accumulate. I had a moment to be disgusted but decided it was worthless if I wasn't disgusted by the random idiocy of this whole thing anyway.

I laughed, breathless. He rose to look at me, not moving his hips.

"We," I broke off to giggle again, my hands falling back on the sheets, and forgot what I wanted to say. "We're idiots."

He rested his head in my shoulder, agreeing wordlessly. Against better judgement, I laid my hands in his hair, already feeling soreness blossoming between my legs. After Lucius, I'll have to bathe again, I thought.

The silence that has fallen, as comfortable as in Allionya's garden, lasted only a minutes before Master Malfoy opened my door and walked in.

o.O.o

Draco scrambled up, giving his father quite the view before he snatched up the blankets. I didn't bother. Now, I could feel the blood running between my legs. I was mentally and physically exhausted, and a headache was blooming in my skull. I leaned up to my elbows. Lucius, in his grace, only lifted his brow.

"Father, I-" Draco started and stopped.

Lucius let his scion stammer and flush and blanch all at once. "You've been busy, Draco."

Draco settled for a blush and looked down. I knew better than to smirk, but if Lucius had not planned for this, I'd eat a shoe. Red and shaky, Draco dressed and scurried out. Despite everything, he still hovered by the door though, looking at me. I unearthed a smile. Insolent boy, he cast his father a glare and left.

Such an interesting child, I wondered.

I started to straighten, but Lucius raised his hand. "I think we're rather passed ceremony," he said, mock gracious.

I laid back down. Maybe it was post coitus, but I spoke my mind. "I don't understand him."

"Did he coerce you?" he asked casually, likely not caring one way or the other. As if Draco was that type.

"No," I said gustily. "I never thought I'd be in the situation though."

"You know the Pact," he said, not a question.

I shook my head, bemused. "That he would go to such lengths. You must know I made no attempt to seduce me," I said, looking at him.

"Draco likes best what he finds out of his reach."

I hummed in agreement and glanced at him. "Where does my lord wish of me?"

He gave a small, cold smile. "Here in fine."

The brand could go anywhere, but Lucius chose my abdomen. With his wand, he pressed the crest of Malfoy house to my stomach, above my bellybutton. It stung a moment, digging into flesh, but it was gone in a flash. A shadow remained of the lines, two rams butting heads over a coat of arms. In a day, even that will sink into flesh, surfacing when called. He finished, inspecting his work like the craftsman I knew he wasn't. The magic coiled and pooled, heating the inside of my belly.

"Do you swear yourself to me?" he asked, tracing the fading lines.

"I do."

"And onto my son when I pass?"

I blinked, not expecting that. "Yes," I said then more firmly, "I do."

"Do you swear to protect my family? Do you swear to obey me? Do you swear to knowingly make no action that will hurt my house? Do you swear to swear to protect my secrets and my interests?"

Things I'd already promised. "I do."

"Above all else," he purred.

"I do."

The brand gave a leap, as if in joy. I could feel his magic in unfamiliar ways. It mixed with mine like chains, too hard to be vines. I could reach past them and touch the world, but they drifted behind me, rooting me to regions I'd perviously only passed through. The wards of the manor, so hostile and wary, gave a sigh. They shivered around me, accepting me as our master's hand.

Something I'd not noticed left me. Claws releasing my shoulders, wings bearing it away. It felt so clear that I looked about the room, seeing nothing. I had no idea what curse had just been broken, no idea I'd bore it to begin with, or if was a curse at all. And I couldn't ask Lucius, who stood in wait, masking unexpected awkwardness.

This ritual was usually conducted on an altar, not in the servant's bed. I didn't know what he needed me to do. But the moment of indecisiveness was over as soon as it had come. He was a lord of one of the most ancient houses.

He was experienced in ways that Draco wasn't and used that experience when he didn't have to. Of course, he did not treat me with the kindness he might allot for his bed partners, but neither was he malicious.

With the intimate connection I shared with his magic, I felt no attraction. I was nothing more than a thoroughbred to him. He might find me pleasing but in the same way of a bought horse.

I smiled in contentment and hid it, less he misunderstand. This was the way things were meant to be. A matter of inheritance, tradition.

Nothing like Draco, who was a confusion and a distraction.

I did not look at his face when he entered, lying on my stomach, but the feel of everything coming together sent a jolt through me that was impossible to ignore. The magic of the oaths, the wards, his position in the house of Malfoy, and my own, meant to be used without my consent created a stained panel in my mind, a picture of glass shielding and distorting the light.

I jerked my hips, bent my waist. The man made a small sound above me. The light from the window blared. I tried to rear up, but his hand came down on my shoulder, pinning me. A snarl-moan escaped me before I could find it. It twisted my neck, and for a moment, I saw Lucius. But for a tension in his brow and mouth, there was nothing soft in the spun silver-gold of his hair, like philosopher's mercury, the blue of his eyes like permafrost.

Something primal in mind halted and stared. Then, it rose in a fury, and I snapped hips backwards again, finding my knees.

"What are you playing at?" he whispered, straining in my ear.

I'd never thought to hear such a voice from him and grinned, like a jackal.

"Pawns plays the same game as the rook."

"You think I'm a rook?" he asked with some humor, grabbing my forearm.

"I've always liked the rook," I said, learning the movements of his body like a dead language. "It's quickest on the board. Save the queen."

"And the bishop."

"I don't envision you as a bishop. That piece always seemed a little female to me."

"Why I wonder," he sighed.

I smiled and made him see it, hair pasted to my forehead and swimming about me like a swamp. "She moves slantways, my lord."

He laughed.

Cruel and demanding, a man who found worth only in beauty and power, Lucius pleasured himself with control. But even he, surprisingly, lacked a love of violence, probably found it crude. And there were better ways than pain to grapple a situation vastly running away from him.

"Do you know why are you here?" he whispered slickly in my ear.

I paused, licking my lips, but I still didn't understand. "To alleviate the imbalance of debt between the Malfoys and the Potters."

He hummed a small victory, skimming me with his hands, and said, "But tell me why you're really here."

The bed made a faint, earnest creak, clearing a small space in my head. As soon as it formed, I saw it. Everything that Dumbledore had _not_ said over the years. Why I couldn't step outside. The steps I'd taken away from one thing and towards another, so much father away.

"So my cousin wouldn't have to be."

Lucius smiled and touched my chest, adjusting the width of my thighs. "Dumbledore is heartless," he purred.

I smiled.

I don't know how he saw me. I must have looked like some wild beast, breathless, sweaty, and naked, sprawled beneath him with a possession in my murky eyes. I saw Lucius' throat tighten when I looked at him, and I again felt the urge to bite him or roar, trapped behind a window of stained glass connected to a hand on my shoulder.

There was nothing of this with Draco.

I gasped as he hit an unnamable spot, and I felt his eyes follow the line of my back, my breathless scream of victory. And I heard the thought. It clung between us, and I wormed backwards, forcing angles.

I listened to that thought as he came inside me, as we both realized the moment he had failed to completely subdue me.

Who is she?


	7. Heirs of an Old Foreign Land

Chapter 7: Heirs of an Old, Foreign Land

As tired as I was, sleep eluded me that night. About an hour after Lucius left, I took another shower. The steam cleared my head some, but I got restless just looking at the bed. I wasn't forbidden to wander and did so, clothed in a meager robe to ward off the nip of stone.

The wards had already begun to accommodate me. Where before the tight sensation of invasion clung to my skin, it had opened. The wards suckled at my toes and my fingers when they brushed the wall, like a child who at last had been told the wild beast was safe. I let it familiarize itself with me, touching corners and pausing in large rooms.

The kitchens of Malfoy Manor were several times larger than Miss Bagshot's house. Copper pots gleamed, hanging among heavy, iron pans. Usually, there were a dozen or so house elves scrambling about the stoves and basins. In the quiet and white starkness of the room, Narcissa Malfoy stood out brazenly.

I paused at the door, staring at her as one might the unexpected picture in a pop-up book. She seemed oddly three-dimensional in the stillness of the room.

She looked up before I had the chance for a graceful retreat. Her hair was made in a long, traditional braid, the paleness of her face unmarked by cosmetics. She had surprisingly dark lashes, pleasantly sharp though small across doll-like features and baby pink lips. Disturbed in the witching hour, she had right to be cross with me. Instead, she looked regal, an English Cleopatra lounging in her lair.

"Lady Malfoy," I said, dipping my head. She continued to stare at me, something about her lack of face more sublime and surreal, making her ghostly. "May I fix you some tea?"

She didn't answer. Tentatively, I moved towards the stove. Removing the kettle from its hook, I filled it with tap water and began the search for leaves.

"The third drawer."

I bowed without looking at her. It was impossible to light the fire without magic, match, or flint. I shoveled in a few lumps from the coal box and dipped my finger in the water, making a brief summoning circle. A low-level sprite fluttered into existence. Squabbling the whole while, it caught the coal, and was banished.

It was silent as I worked, my mistress' eyes on me. I drew out a cup, wiping down the rim, and taking a saucer. There was an art in china, where what cup was used displayed dispositions, an insult to your enemy, a welcome to an uninvited guest. The one I chose, decked with budding vines and a rim of gold, was one of wary truce from a humble partner.

"Please," she said with feigned softness. "Join me."

Her arm gestured to the cupboard, drawn out like the petals of an orchid. I stared at her, feeling the teeth of a predator in her smile. Swallowing, I looked at the cups. Almost all were made of fine porcelain, imported from Merlin knew how many countries. Gold rimmed, silver rim, copper even pewter, bronze and brass. In the back were even the rarely used iron cups, those used among the members of a blood feud.

I picked up one of bronze. The meaning in such things was so intricate, and I could not be entirely sure which secret she would chose from the briars. I remembered only so much from my studies, but bronze was an alloy of both strength and humility. The casting for bells and cannons. It was not garish nor was it particularly beautiful. A meager cup with only a speckled sapphire glaze that I desperately hoped was tranquil. Only the handle displayed any aesthetic, polished and pleasing.

I placed it on the counter. Lady Malfoy's gaze flickered over it, the movement of a beetle's wings, before coming up to me again. I could not decipher what secrets they held and was thankfully wise enough not to try.

With years of etiquette training, I set up the strainer and poured steam over the leaves. I passed her her cup and went to nurse my own by the stove, wondering what future I now held in her household. If it would now be full of a proud woman's spite. Regardless of what power a man held over his business and charity, she was my orchestrator, and she could make my life more miserable than Lucius ever could.

"You are up late," she said after a long silence, taking her tea at last and dipping in her spoon.

I weighed my options like a nervous animal, but Bathilda had always told me that dawdling revealed ineptitude and ineptitude was weakness. I had a feeling that one did not survive long on Lady Malfoy's graces after displaying weakness.

"I apologize, my lady."

"For what?" she said with a deceptive blasé tone. "Bedding my son and husband?"

"I would not presume to apologize for either," I said quickly and honest. "Not when one was in the grace of my master's inclination and the other of necessity. If you think I am deserving of punishment, then I am. I apologize for making such necessity. Nothing else in within my right."

Narcissa stared at me, only the subtle widening of her eyes revealing her shock. Then, she laughed, once and full of wine and poison. Even unmade in her nightclothes, I thought she seemed a queen in her land, though I couldn't tell of lioness or snake.

"I almost believe you," she said, sipping her tea. She looked at me with amusement, and I must have imagined the diamonds in her ears. "You were made nearly perfect, Miss Potter. Certainly with a man in mind. I tend to hate women like you," she confided.

I had no idea what a woman like me meant, nor how I was made for men, any man. My flaws rung in my ear like a knell.

With a slight movement in her knees, she bade me closer. Gently setting down my cup, I walked the length of the kitchen until I was by her side, a position I noted that was not of servant and mistress but of teacher and pupil. Her cold hand touched my cheek, and it was not kindness in her eyes.

"I do not find myself hating you. Despite my resolve to. You are terribly young," she sighed.

She lowered her hand, and I was left bereft, unsure of my position.

"You will have no more of my husband."

I wrinkled my brow, eyes wide that she would even have to say such a thing. "Yes, my lady."

She measured my offense and my surprise before giving a single crisp nod, like the folding of vellum. She said nothing of her boy. Time would tell, she seemed to say, whether I was deserving of her contempt.

Bowing out and leaving my tea for the elves, I knew I had passed the curse for now.

o.O.o

The hall was filled with the light tittering of ladies' laughter and champagne glasses. The Malfoys mingled among their guests with the rapt attention of dedicated hosts. I caught glimpses of them as I weaved through the crowd, three trays of refilling glasses and pastries floating above my head.

Their eyes followed after me.

This was the Malfoys' summer ball. Summer solstice was a festival for the Light, but I never knew a house, Dark or Light, that gave up the excuse for a party. That they celebrated in August instead of June was a subtle thumbing to the seasons. Joie was a type of faerie wine commonly used in such festivities east of September, and the Malfoys had it in abundance.

This year, they had decked the dining hall in summer green and vanilla and had bewitched the wall to show cloudless, aching sky. Crawling through it, the perfume of orchids reigned. I did not know how they'd breed them to behave like vines, but it was artistry well done. The seven-course dinner, orchestra, and gossip, these were things I couldn't memorize. The duties of a spouse were intricate. I was content to drift through the crowd, decked like the hall, another ornament on their towering list.

Narcissa had chosen my outfit for the evening, measured by a seamstress that catered only to the elegantly rich. They had schemed and deviled while I stood on the dais until I was finally outfitted in an appropriate costume.

My long hair had been twisted and tied around two orchids, white with pastel souls to compliment my sable color, scattered with smaller carnations. The robe, improper for an unmarried witch, was apparently acceptable for a server, one who was no longer a virgin. Sheer pleats of chiffon opened my back, beaded with what I hoped were fake diamonds. A flesh-worker had done some type of design on my back. I hadn't yet seen it, but I imagined it was a lindworm from the Malfoy crest. The dress fell rather than clung, a style I had never considered in clothing. I knew it as an attempt to make me spritish. The haphazard curls, the shimmery green powder down my cheeks and eyes, the open sleeves and diaphanous layers. Hovering chutes of wines, I must have looked ridiculous.

Part of me knew that this was my coming out ball. Had I been the child of a proper pureblood family, this would have happened when I turned seventeen, and I would not be serving joie. I would wear the gloves and veil of eligible witch. I would have brothers and cousins and aunts to fawn over my robes. Instead, this was the inauguration of a life debt entering the service of the Malfoys, disguised as a summer ball.

It didn't matter. I was still the center of attention. It could not be so different in convention from marriage, where I served yet another house not of my blood. Then, I would endeavor to continue a bloodline. Here, my deeds were measured in the quality of my subservience.

A finger trailing up my spine made me shiver and the drinks tremble. I turned to find a young lad of Italian descent grinning at me. Dark curly hair fell over surprisingly violet eyes, the dimples on either side of his face suited to his dark skin.

I put a smile on, my bare feet sliding over the tile. "The heir Zabini, I must presume."

"Blaise, please," he purr-spoke, curling his fingers as if he was used to holding a flower stem. "I have not seen you before. I'm sure I would have noticed."

"No, lord," I said politely. "I've recently entered a contract with my lords the Malfoys."

He touched one of my curls tumbling over my shoulder. "And they have such a fey serving drinks?" He pressed the hair to his lips.

I stared into his face. There was the echo of his mother and grandmother and all the deviousness of their lot. Strange, that he managed to inherit the Zabini name. It to my knowledge had never been in the hands of a man. He was a rake, but it would be foolish to dismiss his heritage.

"You would have me do else, heir Zabini?"

Lavender fire flashed in his eyes. He gave a red-lipped smile.

"I'd thank you to keep your hands off the help," Draco interrupted, coming up behind him. I gave the intricate bow I had practiced to keep my modesty in the bedamned chemise.

"But how can I," Zambini said without pause, "when they are so lovely."

Had I been uncultured, I would have snorted. Sybarite.

But it was interesting to watch Draco's reaction. He glared at the dilettante, mouth set in a firm line that I could easily envision on him when he was middle-aged and working politics.

I ducked my head. "If you will excuse me, my lords, I need to finish my rounds."

Draco waved me off, and an argument picked up almost as soon as I left. It surprised me sometimes, how insecure he was.

The debutantes and elitists were in great finery. This was the fashion I was familiar with, not the vulgar half-dresses and bared legs of the girls in Diagon Alley or the unclothed chests of boys. The bustle had at last gone out of style it seemed, though the older women still bore crinolines, but there were still indulgences of Chantilly and Kenmare lace, pouter pigeon waistlines, petticoats and stomachers, corsets and engageantes.

I had been secluded in Bathilda's cottage and knew nothing of the latest fashion, bar what Lord Malfoy purchased me. I was relieved to see that they were simpler in style but not so far removed as muggle-wear. The sack back robes were dear to me, falling from the shoulders of men and women alike, remnants of an age still not passed.

I smiled passed the frowning face of Mr. Rochester's wife and caught the eye of another young lord. Evan Rosier Jr. was the most swarthy of the English heirs. He had a low brow that was neither ugly nor pretty and a jaw that made him look malevolent. He alone held none of the bred culture of a pureblood and was watching me with an intensity made sinister by his unadorned, black greatcoat. His conversation partner was Ceil Eglantine, Draco's pretty heir, who was his opposite in every way.

Where Evan was dark, Ceil was fair. His baby-dolls hair was platinum, his lashes and eyes frosted. He bore an obscene amount of red on his lips that made him look a dosser. He wore a Mandarin robe, rather than a sack back, of such silvery blue I thought it might have been sewn from patroni, and a lady's lace gloves. He, even more than his partner, was thumbing his nose to the decadence of his elders. Outright rebellion as opposed to the passive aggressive resolve of Evan jr. He too watched me, though with less intensity and something dulled that I couldn't quite convince myself was stupidity.

Neither made the motion to call me over for joie, and I had no excuse to impose. Reluctantly, I continued the rounds, confused by my own desire to engage them. Those who in another world might have been my peers.

Beauty, class, power. This was the dominion of blood. The elders got drunk off their chutes, demeaned and disparaged. The mothers and fathers tittered between showing off their prodigy and placating their parents. This had been the way of things for centuries, even when the fashion embraced more freedom of movement and the rituals were passed off as a grandmother's fancy.

But there was a discrepancy in their children.

Not all, nothing as blatant as Ceil. But it was there in hair cut too short. In smiling at an old family enemy. In the something behind their eyes that hinted of more than boredom.

There was distrust in the heirs, though of what I could not surely say. It was a brewing, that which might, or might not, yield explosions.

This world was so much more different than I had imagined. Lies and secrets were not a modern invention, but I wondered if perhaps this disrespect was not an additive of the time. What had I missed secluded in an old's woman's pocket? All the time I'd spent dreaming of this place... Had I become a fossil so soon?

What did it matter, I thought, tearing my gaze away again from the Eglantine boy. I was here to serve. All things else were superfluous.

o.O.o

I parried the last lecherous attempt to lure me into a closet and considered myself done for the night. The adults were beginning to retire, the party splitting into three groups. The men retreated to the lounge, the women to the parlor, each to dabble with the intrigue of their gender while leaving their scions to the corpse of the dance hall. The soft ends of a pianissimo suite drifted over the emptied room, lingering against the dying walls and chandelier like a voyeur. The youths had thrown themselves against settees, nursing the last of the chutes of joie.

I retreated to the kitchen. I plucked the last remaining pastry, pretty pink and white, in my mouth and sat down to massage my aching feet. The reprieve did not last long. Fingers tugged at my dress. Bim, an old matron elf, was looking up at me.

"Young master is wanting miss," she said with the raspy tone of all old grandmothers in all species.

With a sigh, I licked the fondant off my lips and wiped the crumbs from my dress. The elf had popped through the floor, but I had to suffer the service entrance back into the dance hall, a disgusting climb full of cobwebs that refused to be cleaned despite my best efforts.

Draco was sitting with a platoon of heirs, most of whom I could identified from my studies. Junior and Ceil, the Zabini heir, the Eglantine girls and Greengrasses, the Elmsworthy boy, Parkinson's snooty daughter, the Bulstrodes, d'Prince and little d'Macnair, Ernie Macmillan, Justin Rowle, and Theodore Nott.

"Ah, the dear servant girl," Blaise said, catching sight of me first. He approached with assumed familiarity, taking my hand to lead me to the rest of the guests. I bit off the reprimand that told him he wasn't supposed to hold my arm like that.

I was silly in my costume, barely dressed and covered in glitter, but bowed nonetheless.

"You requested my presence, Master Draco."

"I figured you should meet some of the people you will be schooling with," he said elegantly.

Pansy Parkinson sniffed in distain.

"I would find it a pleasure if you were to introduce yourself," Zabini said in its wake, all gentle hands. "You know me but I don't even have your name."

I looked at Draco and found him smug. So the Malfoys had kept it secret, even after parading me about. Purebloods. I little doubted what Lucius was saying to his fellows and Narcissa to her own.

"Of course. My name is Rosalind, my lord. Formally of the house of Potter."

Blaise's eyes widened. I felt the other heirs stiffen, carefully hiding their emotion as they gazed me over. Draco smiled.

"A relation to Harry Potter?" Zabini asked, slightly breathless.

"He is my second cousin. Though we have never met," I added, confused by the glazed look and tenseness of the situation.

Yes, the last scion of the house of Potter had been hidden away, but I didn't believe it warranted breathlessness.

Blaise gathered himself. Brushing his knuckles not quite touching over my face, he turned to Draco. "You've found a gem, Draco."

Draco scoffed. "She's still a Potter."

"I can see it now," Kristine d'Rochester said, her fingers hiding only half of her lips so that she looked to be perpetually grinning. "The resemblance is extraordinary."

Kristine was Ceil's younger sister, the chosen heiress to Vilhem Rochester. Though she had to be my age, she looked older. The effect of a spell perhaps, though I thought it more likely that she had inherited her mother's features. She had the grey eyes and blonde hair of a Malfoy, but the rest belonged to Corinne Laurent, managing somehow to seem dark even in a pink rose robe.

"Where did you find her, Draco?" she asked.

He stirred the last glass of joie in his hand haughtily. "Dumbledore had her hiding with Bagshot."

"You're joking," another girl said. Caroline Vane d'Prince, heiress to Evergreen Prince.

She was almost as great an anomaly as Blaise. The Princes were known for their dark complexion and handsomeness, traits in no way missing from Madam Evergreen even at the ripe age of 77. But Caroline had the bright strawberry blonde hair of a fox and a disposition that was meant for second sons and daughters.

"It's no joke," Draco said complacently. "She was given to father at the beginning of August by Dumbledore himself."

They turned back to look at me, as if my association with Dumbledore was an even greater blister than Harry.

"You think she's safe," Kristine asked.

Draco shrugged, a lie if I ever saw one. I wasn't sure what he thought of my loyalty, but it was not with indifference. But that could be a secret between the two of us. Along with the water patterns on his breeches he'd gathered in Allionya's Garden.

"She'd be a fool not to be," a voice came suddenly from further down the settees.

It was Ceil. He was a descendent of Malfoy through his father, who was son to Abraxas Malfoy's sister, Draco's heir until my lord produced his own. The dullness I had seen was a shadow in the back of his eyes, bright as a silver pence. Ceil was of such an androgynous breed, he would have made as equal a beauty as a woman as a man. He had some illness I remembered. I knew that had been a scandal when Lucius announced the line of descent, barring his eccentrics. Though, I had no idea what the illness was.

He came closer after he had spoken. The smallest of his siblings yet the eldest, Junior in his shadow.

"May I call you Rosalind?" he asked.

"As you prefer, my lord," I said neutrally.

"You'd be a fool not to be loyal to Malfoy," he continued. "Uncle Lucius wouldn't hear of it. Don't you agree?"

"Rather than a matter of foolishness, I believe it a matter of capability."

"You are not capable of disloyalty?" he said, staring up into my eyes with something between that of a lamb and a halcyon.

"No," I said, forgetting the platitudes of my standing. Something in his gaze made me stubborn and eager.

He smiled. "Loyal and clever. That is a change."

"You can't possibly believe her," Pansy said. "That's a load of rot."

"Barring the rot," Caroline said. "I am interested in your history. How did you come to be in the care of Albus Dumbledore?"

"My father offered me in place of the heir to the Malfoys. But he and my mother died soon after I was born. Dumbledore brought me to Madame Bagshot, and she taught me what I needed to know to fulfill my duties."

I was a simple matter really if one didn't consider the gravity of the need to hide me.

"There hasn't been a proper life debt in England in half a century," Bethany Vane d'Macnair said with the air of a historian. "Certainly not one that's been trained since birth."

"That must have been hard," Theodore Nott said. He was beside Pansy's arm but gave me a sympathetic look nonetheless. "You were denied everything," he continued when I remained silent.

"Everything implies different meanings, lord. I am what I am. It is likely no harder than any other life, and I take certain pride in it," I added.

"How can you?" d'Prince asked curiously.

"I do not find it dishonorable. I can work for my house and improve the standing of another house that saw fit to save one of my forebears."

"If you really believe that," Justin Rowle said, lounging on a settee to himself. "Then you probably are incapable of disloyalty. You've been brainwashed."

It must have been a muggle saying because I wasn't sure I understood.

"That's a little harsh, Rowle," Blaise defended.

"You mean that I've been trained not to have a choice," I said. "If that it so, then I would likely be more dangerous. I was raised by Dumbledore," I said, glancing uncertainly between their stares. "I don't believe he'd train me to be loyal to a Dark house. I would enter the house under false pretenses, and the magic would kill me."

Millicent Bulstrode laughed. "You haven't gotten out much have you?"

I watched Draco's face darken.

"You're not as disillusioned as I thought," Kristine said with an unkind grin. "And you certainly aren't boring," she said with a glance at the doors where the elders had disappeared.

"Thank you, lady."

We talked for a while more, I fielding questions while they searched for weaknesses in my armor. At last, their parents slowly trickled out of the lounge and parlor to collect them. Some went to the floo, others to the apparating point outside the wards, Some carted across their children's shoulders, completely sloshed. By the end of it, I was tired, running around in circles with joie and running around in circles with Kristine Eglantine.

I should get off the settee. I knew I should get off the settee. My body was just having a hard time obeying.

"Where are you?"

I blinked, realizing I had gotten lost. Peacocks wandered beneath broken shadows, the whiteness of their plumage as dazzling as the moon. At the end of August, the night was warm enough to provide the perfect weather for their midnight strolls. Stark, swift passages of white leaping from bush to bush. I was dozing on the settee.

"Apologies, my lord," I said, trying to stand.

"You managed to impress them." He arranged his limbs on the settee beside me far more casually than with our audience.

"I should hope so, my lord," I agreed wearily, thinking oddly of Evan and Ceil.

"Come," he prodded, climbing up. "I'll see you off to bed."

"I'm perfectly capable of finding my own bed, Master Draco."

"You seem perfectly capable of collapsing. Should I order you to let me carry you?"

"No, my lord. I'll find my own feet. Bound to be running around here somewhere," I ended, a mutter thankfully too low to be heard.

We made it halfway through the mansion before he decided that I was going too slow and scooped me up. The damn blouse didn't allow much for modesty, so I was rather sure I was revealing myself but was too tired to care. Slim man he seemed, he didn't seem to have much trouble carrying me.

I felt his muscles moving as he walked. His heartbeat thumped in time with his boots. Over all, it was making me very sleepy. It seemed all too soon when he set me down outside my door.

I lifted my head up to face him but couldn't find the resolve to open my eyes.

A hand carded through my hair, disturbing the carnations, and I leaned into the stroke. "You were beautiful tonight. Most the guest wished you'd been in their beds."

I took a deep breath that pushed out my shoulders then let it out.

"As you say, my lord."

"But you're mine, aren't you?" he said, caressing my jaw.

"Yes, my lord."

He leaned closer, whispering his threat. "Remember that, Rose."

Shut up and kiss me and let me go to sleep.

Gratefully, he did so, holding my face in his hands and placing his lips at the corner of my own. He opened the door behind me and wavered, like he wanted to come in but couldn't decide what he would to do if he did. It was too late for this.

"Good night, Rose," he said awkwardly.

I collapsed in my bed, still in my glitter, gown, and flowers.

"'Night, 'lord."

Whether he entered or not, I was too asleep to tell.


	8. The Sorting: Rose's Perspective

Chapter 8: The Sorting I

Platform 9 ¾ held more people than I knew could exist in one place. I stepped through the floo behind Master Draco and was immediately pressed in by bodies. It was a fight between the platform and the train, parents sending off their young and young struggling to flee from their parents. So many voices, so many unrestrained magicks. I lost my feet, slamming against a compartment car.

I was much better being in the open, and the station was covered by domes of dirty glass, but there was only so much I could handle before I panic crept on me. I'd lost Draco in the bustle and was suddenly terrified of moving.

"Um, miss?" a voice called from above.

A young man had opened the compartment window and was staring at me from the inside. He bore an expression of concern, fingers still on the lever of the window.

"You alright?"

I wetted my mouth and nodded. I had no baggage, the elves having long stashed both our cargo. I staggered to the nearest door and slipped inside. Bent over the rail, I couldn't care much for decency, catching my breath. It took a while, time spent cursing Albus to every hell I knew. Sick of the noise (such a cacophony I'd never heard), I decided to search for my master. The claustrophobia of the train was welcome, this chaos at least ordered by strict, narrow walls.

It was not hard to find Draco. He was a prefect, and it was required he be seated with his fellow, Millicent Bulstrode, in the professor's car. I backed out, needing one glimpse of his profile to assess his condition. We'd arrived with only a quarter hour to spare, and the time it took me to find the professors' car filled the rest of the train with little ones. Excited first years ran up and down the corridors, only a few faces familiar from Bathilda's tomes. The majority I figured were half-bloods and muggleborns, far less composed and far more enamored of the devices around them.

I slipped and dodged, forced all the way to the back of the train until I could find a manageable seat.

The one doe-eyed boy, who had asked for me from the window, was seated on the cushions, startled when I opened the door. No compartment was empty, the others full of even more persons I was equally unfamiliar with. Odd though it was, I ignored the voice (in Bathilda's untidy baritone) screaming "Inappropriate!" in my ear and closed the door.

"Do you mind if I sit with you?"

The latter half my sentence was cut off by the train's whistle. A few seconds later, the car began its clumsy march, and I gave the boy an awkward smile, clutching the doorframe, practically begging him not to throw me out.

Though he hardly took the space of one seat, he scooted over, nervously tucking in his grasshopper legs. I took the seat across, already dressed in the unmarked robes of a new-year.

"A-are you new to Hogwarts?" he said awkwardly, browsing my chest rather than meeting my face.

"Yes," I said simply, no idea what his status was. "I've been home-schooled."

"My Gran wanted me home-schooled, but I came to Hogwarts anyway. Not much I'm afraid. Not much in classes. Hardly get along really."

The nervous chatter made me smile. He had an earnest voice and a small one, and he kept glancing at me as if I might want to eat him for supper.

"I'm sure you're a fine wizard."

He gave me another nervous, flickering glance, looking embarrassed. We settled into an easy silence, the whirl of landscape and chugging of the engine keeping me between comfort and sickness.

"I'm Neville," he said. When I turned to look at him, he started babbling again, "I'm a seventh year. Though I'd probably do better as a fifth year. I'm in Gryffindor. Don't know about that really either."

He ended with a private smile, a memory I was not privy to softening the blow of his self-degradation.

He was indecently freckled, the look of a farm boy or an Irishman. He had the look of someone who's puberty had starved him into the visage of a stringed bean, but his brown eyes were so soft, like newly tilled clay dirt.

"I'm Rosalind. But you may call me Rose if you prefer."

His blush brought a lovely bit of color to his face, a hint of man in his otherwise boyish features.

"I, uh, saw you," he said. He gestured to the window. "When you... uh..."

"I know."

Looking even more uncomfortable, he still asked, "Are you alright?"

There was little way I could not respond. "I don't like crowds much. Or open space really. I was raised in a small house."

He looked like he understood completely. Not even Draco understood it.

"I'm scared of a lot of things," he said quietly.

For some unfathomable reason, I found myself talking. It was likely nerves I must admit. Much had changed for me in the past month, but this was still my first time traveling, and I had underestimated how racking it was. I didn't like _moving_ anymore than I liked being outside or too many noises.

So I told Neville about my panic attacks, though not why I had them, and the relief on his face, in finding someone like him, was as much a balm for him as for me. We shared silly terrors, and I listened as he described his family, none of whom were supportive of his certain delicacy.

I liked him. He was a different type of wizard. His clothing portrayed him a pureblood, or a half-blood with money, and he carried the weight of someone who was simultaneously wounded and spoiled. He seemed to be both terrified and trustful of his neighbors. A rare strength. Like a turtle. Slow and weak of skill, but with a hard shell that could be battered without harming his self. Displaying his flimsy little neck for the jaws of a beast and retracting when it bit, lounging when it didn't. Who had the patience to betray a turtle?

The compartment door slid open, interrupting the tale of his uncle, who seemed the most belligerent of his kin. The girl that stood in the doorway was a sight to behold. The radishes dangling from her ears barely brushed her shoulders as she peered in, making the turns of a long-necked bird. Her petticoats were dirty and her stockings torn. Her little feet danced bare, and she was holding a note pad. The strangest was the ephemeral smile on her face, the face of a monk that was odd on such a blinding girl barely over sixteen.

"Neville," she said airily. "You weren't in the fifth compartment."

It was not an admonishment, just a fact.

"There were first years..." He trailed, assuming nonetheless that he was in trouble.

She shut the door behind her and perched on the seat beside me, jiggling. There were bits of mirror in her hair.

Lovegood, I finally placed her. Her father ran (actually ran, not only owned) a magazine. She had his eyebrows but the rest of her was her mother, Ceil and Kristine's aunt.

She ignored me in favor of sketching on her pad. Neville made an apologetic smile.

The Lovegoods were purebloods, but they were not trained like purebloods. They were what used to be called the Blue Folk. I knew not what name it possessed now. Houses had Light and Dark orientation. Whether a child of these houses chose Light or Dark for their magicks was their own making. A precious few chose neither. And both. The Blue Folk possessed neither the money of the Dark or the family of the Light. They coexisted, studying eccentricities even for wizards and slowly losing their health and their lives to mysteries.

Some scholars said they had bred with the fey, others of the more Christian appetite that they communed with demons who slowly eat their minds and souls. I thought a lot of men had a lot of time and not enough sense.

Luna's mother, Beatrice Laurent, was from a prestigious family, a good bloodline, but she married a Lovegood. She had not been burned off the tapestry, but there was certainly excommunication. She had died when her daughter was quite young, no funeral held. Luna Lovegood had been one of my romances. She was almost everything I had envisioned, corkscrews and all.

Busily, I caught a glimpse of her writing. I recognized tail script, the upside down writing that used a form of cursive that started from the bottom of the page and made its way up. Disorienting discipline. A follower of a Light Lord in France had developed it in the fifteenth century because for some reason it was impossible to enchant. No matter what spell was used, no magic could subvert tail script, no compulsions, no additions, no deletions. It could only be altered by hand, which no wizard hardly took the time and effort to practice adequately.

I could read it but not quite write it. While Luna's hand looked perfectly trained. It seemed like a young article for her father's paper. Bathilda didn't buy that trash, called the lot of it nonsense. (Though she continued to buy those veela books.)

I read over her shoulder, making a general arse of myself.

"Are you interested in the life of a jestlewoff?"

I jumped, sliding guiltily back into my seat. She was looking at me but had not moved, the patience on her face complimented by the mirrors in her hair. I felt like I had run into a glass door.

"No, miss. I mean... what is it? If I could... ask."

She handed me the article. I watched her first then the pad. The creature, a jestlewoff, was either a being of her own making or some covert form of magical badger I had never heard of. I could hardly find any use for the thing beyond silliness, but there it was, spread out in her hard-earned script, like a coded treasure map.

"Are they real?"

"Yes," she said. "I've seen them."

So clear. My opinion had no more influence over her than wind to an underground home. I wanted to believe her. I just wasn't quite sure how.

I suppose it was not impossible for such a beast to exist. I suppose a jestlewoff could come traipsing through our dreams like a hog sniffing truffles, find the gems of our thoughts to digest through the morning. Certainly, why not?

The article was only half finished. She'd stopped in the middle of an exposition about why the third prime minister abandoned his research on Carthaginian bandercats to work on exterminating vampires.

"So how do you stop them?"

"You read stories," she said. "They'll eat the story instead."

How did one eat a story right out of someone's mind? I handed her notes back. She took them and continued as if I'd never bothered her. There were carrion birds said to eat a man's sin as they ate his body. Cloaked in religion, wizards had even less lore about the afterworld than muggles.

Most Dark folk in Britain catered to a loose breed of Catholicism, a remnant of the time Morgan la Fey spent sheltered in a nunnery. Convents and monasteries had once upon a time been the Dark's only haven when they were hunted both by the pitchforks and torches of muggles and the scorn of Light wizards. I hadn't much studied muggle religion, but I knew it had evolved into a creature as different from a wolf as a dog.

I retreated to my thoughts, Luna to her notes, and Neville to the window. The countryside rolled by. One or two stray cows glanced up from chewing cud, but their farmers never saw us.

For the first time, I allowed myself to think of Harry. He had always been a vague character in Dumbledore's stories, vague than lovechild Luna. I did not know what he looked like. Only by the softness in Albus' eyes when he spoke of him did I think he was kind. Honestly, I had no idea how he had grown up or even if he was interested in me.

I could not imagine our interaction. It was so far beyond me. Try as I might, there was no scenario to mull over. It was a blankness, not unlike sleep, that stretched on and on in my mind.

o.O.o

Neville left so Luna could change. She stripped out of her battered leggings, revealing bruises. My mouth watered with something I vaguely recognized was anger. She pulled off her gown, clad only in her new black stockings and searched her bag for the robe. The mirrors danced in the light of passing green hills, and the ring of bottle caps around her neck made her collar moon-pale.

Without prompt, I helped her button the sleeves and adjust the Ravenclaw tie into the bodice. She pulled up the skirt, an odd order to someone like me, who had even been trained in ways to pull up a dress.

"Where are your shoes?"

"They like to take them and hide them. Usually they wait until we're in the castle, but they must have been excited this year," she said placidly. "I'm sure they'll turn up."

I had none of my cargo with me to offer and had no idea who 'they' were, even if I was allowed to harass them into revealing their hiding place. She didn't mind, her dainty, stockinged feet perched on the floor of the compartment as she returned to writing.

Well, I did know a spell. I had not used my wand, except for a few practice sessions with Lucius. Certainly I had never done so by myself. I brought out the sprig, my coarse bone. Decisive, I knelt at Luna's feet. She didn't even look down from her note pad. With a deep breath, I took her foot in my hand and said the incantation.

"_Pedegloriam_."

Glass curved around her foot. It solidified, shining in the light like her little mirrors. Her black stocking was visible of course. It was a slipper, and with a few lightening and cushioning charms it would actually be functional. She looked at it with fascination and delight.

"For me?"

"Yes," I said, blinking. "But it'll vanish at midnight. If I did it right," I muttered.

She touched her ankle and gave me a dazzling smile. She didn't seem to understand the purpose I had made them for, and I had to convince her to let me do the other foot. She was content with just the one.

My thoughtless attempt at magic pleased her more than I'd imagined. She'd abandoned writing to curl her legs on the seat and run her fingers over them when Neville returned. She smiled at him, making him fumble, which in turn made me hide I grin, though I was honestly somewhat confused by her too.

Hogwarts appeared across a lake with a dark forest. The sun was on the other side of the train, disappearing behind the mountains. It cast deepening shade on the old castle, the sheen of wards visible against the dying light. It appeared only for a few minutes before we rounded a bend and the forest sheltered all but the turrets.

Something indecipherable spilled in my chest. The sounds of the railway, which had faded into background, ran beside me once more, opening pathways once more. The doubt and reluctance came up, all the grievances and assurances of my education. What I was. What I wasn't. And the Goliath my stoneless David could not conquer.

Luna touched my arm. Its familiarity was surreal.

"They made that for you."

I shook my head. "No, they didn't."

She didn't know what I was. Neither did Neville. When it should have been the first thing I said. I didn't know it hadn't been. And now I felt like I was in the middle of a lie, though I hadn't meant to lie at all.

The train pulled into the station, one that I realized with horror was not covered. The noise filtered through the door of the compartment suddenly exploded. Without being asked, Neville and Luna waited in the car with me. Shame crept like weeds, but I pushed it back. I had no need for that on top of everything else.

Luna linked her arm through mine, and we descended onto the Hogsmeade platform. I'd been given no instruction and refused to be herded onto the boats with the little ones. Thankfully, the station was nowhere near as crowded as the one in London. Only a few stragglers, unimpressed older years, remained at the carriages, waiting to be carried to the school.

I crept around them, curious despite my reticence. My breath caught, and I released Luna's arm.

They were the most astounding creatures. Horses but not. These had the leathery skin of lizards, pebbled and dark. They were gaunt, yet held themselves like in health, shaking their heads, counting hooves, and adjusting their wings in harnesses. The reptile in them made their movements languid and lazy, but the equine bloated their stomachs and made them prance. There was something slow in the playful manner that they swished their tails, nipping at the mates beside them

"You can see them?" Neville said.

Forgetting propriety, I darted up to one, wavering before the animal scent and bulk. I walked to its front. This one, a male, sniffed and sneezed. It moved forward, jingling the harness, and started chewing on my hair. In awe, I could only giggle like a young girl.

The first beast I had ever touched.

The blackness of his eye was rimmed with milky white like an eclipse, the sun spilling from behind a dark moon. He snorted, raising his lips to reveal sharp incisors and black gums. The canines barely protrude over his lips. He nibbled again on the end of my hair, dancing in a way that made me think him only a colt.

"Little one," I whispered, slimming my hands over his head. "Hey, little one. Good child. What are you, huh?"

"He's a thestral," Luna answered softly behind me.

Her smile had gone softer, and she was watching me with a look I could not explain.

My brow furrowed as I smoothed the underside of his muzzle. His whicker sounded like a giggle, strangely high-pitched.

"I thought you could only see thestrals if you've seen someone die."

"You haven't?" Neville said.

I didn't answer. The students queued behind us were impatient and bickering. Brushing his neck, I disentangled myself and climbed into the carriage. I didn't even feel better in the enclosed space.

A strict looking lady greeted us at the steps, already eying the trouble-makers and hurrying the rest inside. I stopped when she placed a old but firm hand on my shoulder. Luna and Neville both paused politely, but I waved them on.

"Rosalind Potter?"

"Yes, madam."

Her expression softened as her brow dropped down. Half-moon spectacles rested on her hawk-like nose as she gazed at me.

"I am Professor McGonagall, Head of Gryffindor House."

"I am pleased to meet you, Professor."

She was rather unbalanced by my parlance. "You are to wait here. After the others have been sorted, you will be called into the hall. Do you understand?"

"Yes, professor."

I heard the first years begin the ascent from the steps. Her lips tightened before she caught the trailing end of a professor entering the Hall.

"Severus," she called.

The man turned and his eyes fell upon me. Good grief, he looked murderous. I followed McGonagall as she approached him.

"Severus, spare a moment and attend her. I need to attend the first years." Not waiting for a reply, she darted off.

Agile for an old person.

Handed down the chain of command, I peered up at my keeper. The man glared down from a hooked nose, his expression no less dark than a hungry raven. His obsidian eyes reminded me of someone for a second before…

"You wouldn't happen to be a lineage of the Princes?" I asked.

He startled, his fathomless eyes wide.

"Snape," he corrected stonily.

I nodded to myself. He wasn't on any of the trees I studied, which meant he must have been half-blood.

"I am the Defense Against the Dark Arts professor."

"The what?" I said in surprise, interrupting what sounded to be the beginning of quite a long spiel.

The glared at me venomously. "Are you so inept as to not even understand the names of the classes you attend?"

"I've never taken A Defense Against the Dark Arts," I said, insulted.

"I see we've inherited another mentally deficient family member," he muttered.

I was too caught up in the first offense to notice it. The desire to say "Are you daft?" was almost to great to bear. Thank Merlin I had better resolve. What bloody school was this?

Professor Snape stared at me, his mind mulling like clockwork in a dark room. He remained silent, and I remained silent, if only so I didn't blurt something offensive and stupid.

Professor McGonagall led the first years passed us. I heard the door open and close behind them. Neither of us were inclined to fill the emptiness it left. I was too busy trying not to drown.

Finally the door opened again. A warm little man peeked out from inside. His smile was comforting and welcoming.

"You can come in now, dear," he said.

As I approached the doors, trepidation fell over me again. Without warning, Professor Snape gave me a shove, spilling me into the light. Everyone was watching me. I had no idea what Dumbledore had said, what introduction was made, but whispers jumped from mouth to mouth, quick as a crow's gossip. I steeled myself against the stony professor's hand and focused only on the old codger at the center of the table before me. His blue eyes twinkled.

"Ah, Rose," he greeted. He gestured towards a hat and stool on the dais. "Welcome. If you will?"

I felt like I was walking to gallows. I looked for Neville. He sat beside a bushy-haired brunette, his face slack in shock. Luna sat at a table coated by the milky blue of Ravenclaw house. She smiled and waved. I took a little comfort.

"Don't worry, dear," McGonagall whispered as she placed the hat atop my head.

Merlin, did I really look that nervous?

The seam split.

_What have we here?_ The voice echoed in my head. I gazed up into the wide folds of the hat, the rim covering my eyes.

_You're a reader?_

_That I am, and you are a Potter_. It chuckled. _Oh, so many qualities. Loyalty. Unquestionable loyalty but to who, _it asked, _are you bound to?_

_I serve the house of Malfoy._

_I can see that, little witch_. The rim twitched impatiently, making me scoff. _You would suit Slytherin_. _There hasn't been a Potter in Slytherin for quite the year. You are certainly Dark enough_.

I crossed my arms, linking my ankles in the rungs of the stool.

_You have impressive intellect but not the tireless enthusiasm of Ravenclaw. Stubborn, brave. Gryffindor would suit you almost as well as Slytherin._

_You have yet to tell me anything, hat._

It chuckled. _Indeed_._ I think... What you need... is..._

"Gryffindor!" it shouted, making me jump.

McGonagall lifted the hat, and the sound of cheers reached my ears, but I didn't really hear it. I stared at the ragged patchwork for a moment, feeling as if some important wheel had been set into place. The codger's eyes bored into me. I could feel his smile through all the layers of beard.

I resisted the urge to bite my thumb at him.

With an irritated grimace, I joined Neville at my new table. I dared not look at Draco. Several people clapped my back, and I wished they would stop touching me. Miffed, I scooted closer to Neville, who jumped when our hips touched.

Dumbledore stood. "Now that Miss Potter has settled, I hope we can welcome her to our school. Please assist her in any manner necessary. That said, don't go in the Forest, please check Mister Filch's revised list of banned objects, and please do not go frolicking out of bounds after sunset no matter how absolutely lovely the moon is. Dig in."

Food rose onto the golden plates before us, and the students began to gorge themselves. I picked out a roll and nibbled.

"Rose?"

I turned to Neville.

"Why didn't you tell me you were Harry's cousin?"

"Second cousin," I corrected automatically.

The bushy-haired girl's gaze was intense upon me. I set down my roll and scraped some potatoes onto my plate, deliberating ignoring the engrained part of me that balked at eating among them. (I felt the itching crawling up my arms and legs, telling me to find the kitchen.)

"You didn't introduce your family, lord."

He flushed and looked down at his plate. My nerves were prickly. I had not been so tense as the centerfold of the Malfoy's ball. I suspected it had to do with the age of the people around me and the lack of convention for this sort of thing.

"I don't really understand everyone's fascination with my relation to Harry Potter."

"Are you mental?" a dark-haired Irishman asked of me.

"Seamus!" someone cried embarrassedly.

"So he's not the last of his-"

"Harry's near a legend," he said over me. "Defeated You-Know-Who and no one knows how. People think maybe you've got that in ya."

"What?" I said warily. "Got what in me?"

"That," he said, waving his hands ambiguously.

I gave him a disbelieving look.

"You've never heard the story?" a girl said, aghast.

I stabbed at the beef, thinking I probably didn't want to know. This was too much for one day. I couldn't deal with more fabrications and had no tolerance for gossip.

"Don't you want to meet him?" the bushy-haired girl asked.

"I have no say in what Mr. Potter wants or does not want. That is his discretion."

The students glanced at each other, as if in on a secret I had no pardon to.

"So you don't want to meet him?" Seamus said.

I glared at my plates. "In case Dumbledore forgot to mention it, I am a life debt." A few of the students suddenly backed away from me, and I ignored. "Whether Mr. Potter is inclined to meet me or not is within his discretion. Custom," I said to the girl across from me and Seamus, both of whom had the look of muggleborns, "regards me as a..." I hesitated over the derogatory term. "Cast off. I am not permitted to speak to a member of my old house without his permission."

"That's ridiculous," the girl said in affront. "You're still his family."

"I assure you," I said bitterly, taking my goblet. "I am not."

I found it full of pumpkin juice rather than wine and lamented. I could have used a drink.

Someone coughed. It was the type of sound meant to grab attention, and I turned. And froze.

I would have known this boy anywhere. He had the untamed, messy hair of a Potter, the hue gleaned from the Spanish in my grandmother, his great grandmother. The bad eyesight of his grandfather. He must have his mother's nose. The green of his eyes was not so different than mine, though mine were covered in contacts, Albus' solution to my own awful eyesight. Without the masculinity, he might have been my mirror.

"You... I want you to speak to me," he said, breathless.

Speechless, I could only nod. This was the last. The last of my house.

A house I'd been evicted from.

I could not hate Harry. I'd heard of when two people's magicks just fit, ridiculously called love at first sight. I could not explain why I loved him, why I had loved him for years without knowing him, without seeing him. It was like I had _known_, I thought. Somehow. Even now, I thought it as silly as Luna's jestlewoffs. But why not? This was the boy I have sacrificed everything I could have been for. I'd had to love him. To survive.

Now, with no logic I could understand, I wanted to.

I felt dizzy. I looked back down at my plate. I could not afford to show weakness. This was not a gathering of purebloods, but it was full of no less danger. I wished I could retreat to the kitchen but it was impossible. Not only did I have no idea where it was, I was boxed in. I made the impossible effort of caging my emotions and continued eating.

As dinner resumed, my housemates slowly started to introduce themselves.

"I'm Dean Thomas," a dark boy announced. He extended his hand, which I belated realized was a custom for greeting. He flashed white teeth, in a kind smile, when I gave him my palm. "We're in the same year."

"Seamus Finnegan," the blunt Irishman said. "Roommates of your wonderful _second_ cousin."

I gave a harassed look. "Rosalind Potter."

"And you already know Neville?" Seamus framed it as a question.

"Longbottom," the boy added guiltily.

Ah, Longbottom. I smiled back at him, wandering why he hadn't come to the Malfoys' summer party.

"I'm Hermione Granger," the girl across from me said. "This is Ronald," she introduced for the boy beside her, who had a mouth full of food.

"Ron Weasley," he choked out around his fork.

Pureblood, I realized, startled. The regal arrogance I usually associated with Purebloods was absent. Hermione shook her head at the rudeness.

"I'm Ginny Weasley."

The girl reached across Harry, Hermione, and Neville to shake my hand. I immediately felt the power in her. Ginny had a youthful face and kind eyes belied by a hard strength that seemed to extend to the very depth of her.

"Excuse me, but you wouldn't happen to be the seventh child of your family?" I blurted out.

"Yeah," she answered hesitantly.

That would explain it. I released her hand, and she regained her seat next to Harry, at whom I determinedly did not look. I turned to the teacher's table.

Hermione answered the unvoiced question without prompt. "That's Professor Flitwick, the Charms professor."

"Oh." Drat, no hope of impressing him then. Though, he seemed sweet (and patient) enough to teach a person like me.

"The one he's speaking to is Professor Sinistra, the Astronomy professor."

"Who teaches Potions?"

"Professor Slughorn," she said, pointing to a round man in a one-sided conversation with Professor Snape. "And Professor Snape is the Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher."

"Right foul git," Ron added.

Hermione frowned at him. "You shouldn't talk about him that way."

He mumbled, biting into a slice of pumpkin pie.

"Why don't you like him?" I ventured to ask.

"He's a prejudiced prick, and he loves to torture us!" he shouted. "And he's a Death Eater," he said lower.

"Death Eater?"

He gave me a incredulous look. "You work for Lucius Malfoy, and you don't know what a Death Eater is."

"Ron," Hermione hissed.

"I don't interfere the running of my master's household. Nor do I pry into his private affairs. I have no idea what a Death Eater is."

"She must'a lived under a rock," Seamus muttered, amused.

"Death Eaters," Hermione explained graciously, "are those who follow... You-Know-Who."

I frowned. "I thought You-Know-Who was supposed to be dead."

"You really are from under a rock," Seamus laughed. "He came back. Whole mess involved at the Ministry, and Harry..." He gave my cousin an apologetic look. "He tried to tell everyone and no one would listen. Now he's back."

"The dead can't come back," I said, frowning. "He couldn't have been dead if he's here now."

"Well, he managed it," Seamus said. "That's Voldemort for ya."

"Oh," I said, ignoring the strange way people winced. "We're talking about Voldemort?"

Seamus stared at me. "Who in the bloody hell did ya think we were talking 'bout?"

I scowled at him. "I don't know. Some You-Know-Who fellow. How was I supposed to know You-Know-Who is Voldemort?"

"Where the bloody hell have you been?" he snapped.

Trapped in a cottage with an old terror.

I really wished I could go to bed already. Less than a month ago, I hardly knew anybody in the world. This was almost as bad as crowds. I was getting a headache.

o.O.o

McGonagall pulled me aside again as I was being led to the common room. I felt Harry (who I had been trying to avoid), Neville, Ron, and Ginny wait around the corner as Hermione led the first years away.

"Would you mind coming with me for a moment, Miss Potter?"

I couldn't take it anymore. Regardless of courtesy, I had to try. "Professor, please. Could it please wait until the morrow? I'm not... I'm not _used_ to all this."

She hesitated then nodded. "Very well. I wished to speak about your classes."

"Dumbledore is aware of all my credits," I replied in a rather presumptuous tone.

Her lips puckered. "Yes, well. I'm a little confused about why you need remedial Transfiguration and Charms, have never taken Defense Against the Dark Arts, but have already passed all the NEWTS for Arithmancy and Ancient Runes."

Did Dumbledore tell her anything? "This is my first year possessing a wand." At her gobsmacked look, I elaborated. "I'm a servant. I don't have the right to own a wand. Master Malfoy was kind enough to permit my the use of one when it became clear that I was to attend Hogwarts.

"I have studied the spells," I said. "I did not have the proper accommodations to take the NEWTs for Potions and Herbology, but I have the proper preparations to take them."

"Those are core classes," she protested. "Whatever will you do for the year?"

I shrugged, fighting the urge to rub my eyes. "Ask Albus. He's the one who insisted I come."

Shut up, I told myself.

McGonagall seemed to be struggling between being very confused and very, very angry.

"It will take me a while for me to catch up in the other classes," I said softly, trying to give her time to compose herself. "I've never practiced Care of Magical Creatures or Astronomy."

"What of History of Magic?"

I couldn't help it. I laughed. "Merlin, he didn't tell you anything, did he? What a git." I shook my head.

"Would you care to eleborate, Miss Potter?" she said stonily.

I had never much cared for secrets, being one my whole life, though I hardly had any to my name.

"I've been living with Bathilda Bagshot. She's been teaching me since I was born"

"He left you with Bathilda," she said in a voice too restricted for a screech. "She's nearly twice as old as he is."

I snorted. Believe me. I knew. "But she was rather informative when she wasn't, um." No. No delicate way to put it. "Senile."

She coughed. "Yes, well. That does explain… quite a bit."

I shifted in the next silence, wondering when I'd be dismissed. Suddenly, something in the conversation slipped and turned. Alertness battered the weariness. I watched warily as she placed a hand on my shoulder. I realized belatedly where such familiarity extended from, as in the past hour, this woman had become my head of house.

"I trust you have been well-cared for with the Malfoys?"

My eyes widened, catching the allusions. She was a pureblood witch, who knew the implications of what she was saying. The insult she had laid down to that house in the subtleties of her question. I glared at her hand, biting my snarl.

"Forgive my rudeness, Professor," I said coldly, addressing her hand, "but I will ask you to remember that I am a servant of the house of Malfoy before I am a student. I am Master Malfoy's charge before your own, and I will thank you not to make indecent assumptions about my master's honor."

She took her hand back with a look like I had bit her. I might as well have. Perhaps it was unwise of me to make an enemy out of her, not even out of my first day. But I refused to exchange the leash of one old woman for another, even if McGonagall would make the better mentor of the two.

I was right that she had a pureblood woman's training. Her mask fell over her face, and she gave a crisp nod, making no apologize to one beneath her station. I was glad.

I took a step back and bowed, low and long. Though she was in the wrong, I would forever be beneath her. She said nothing, and I was able to leave without looking at her face. I walked passed the startled faces of my fellow Gryffindors, something burning in me that refused to be voiced.

Damn you, Albus. Why must you complicate things so? I did not belong here.


	9. The Sorting: Fallout

Chapter 9: The Sorting II

Harry was more than willing to kill Slughorn, painfully, slowly, and bloodily. It was only the presence of Ginny on his arm that kept him at bay. The man deserved an incendio right in that smug face.

As soon as Harry had boarded the train, he and Ginny had been accosted and dragged to Slughorn's car to be tortured by the man's incessant prattle. Ginny gave him a weary smile, and the grip on his elbow tightened. Hermione and Ron were in the Prefect's car, and Harry was stuck at this useless, fucking party.

He really, really wanted to hit something.

Where was she?

Ginny's presence was a comfort, but he found his thoughts returning to his cousin. She was so close. She was somewhere on this train and he just. Could. Not. Get. Away. He wanted to kiss the ground when they pulled into Hogsmeade. Ginny looked at him when he started to quietly mutter under his breath.

Ron clapped his shoulder, making him jump.

"Merlin, mate. Loosen up a bit."

Harry grunted and Ginny sighed.

"He's been like this all afternoon."

He winced. "Sorry."

Ron pulled up beside him, Hermione in his wake.

"Don't worry about it, mate. Sooner we get to the Great Hall, the sooner you can see her."

He managed a small smile and climbed into the first carriage available. Neville joined them later at the Gryffindor table, looking a little more subdued than usual.

"Alright there, Neville?" Hermione asked politely as the Hall began to fill.

"No, I'm fine," he stuttered a little. He ran a hand through his hair nervously. "Did – did you know there's a new student here?"

"Why? Did you meet her?" Harry half-pounced on him.

"N-no. Well, I mean, yes. I did."

"Calm down, Harry," Ron laughed uneasily as Ginny tugged him back into his seat. "You're getting a little scary, mate."

Harry gave Ginny a grateful smile when she started to rub his back. He looked back to Neville expectantly. The boy cowered under the attention a bit.

"Um, well, she seemed f-fine. Luna liked her."

"She met Looney," Ron laughed.

Neville frowned at him. "Don't call her that."

Ron flushed. "Sorry."

"Luna liked her?" Hermione encouraged softly.

Neville nodded thoughtfully. "Well, yeah. They read the Quibbler together."

They blinked. "She reads the Quibbler?"

"Well, they were talking about it, but I don't think Luna really cared about that."

"What do you mean?" Harry asked.

"They weren't really getting along. Well, I mean, they weren't fighting, but they weren't really talking either. Except for talking about the articles."

"I don't get it," Ginny said when he didn't continue.

He frowned, thinking. "Well, I left to let them change, you know, and I came back and they were just smiling."

"Smiling?" Ginny repeated. They looked at each other.

"Yeah, and they were friends. Like that."

Nobody uttered the vague taste of _curse_ in the air.

"They could just be friends," Ginny said softly.

They looked over as one to the Ravenclaw table. Luna sat segregated from the rest of her house, reading her father's magazine. The radishes were still dangling from her ears, casting a strange reddish-purple glow to her otherwise golden hair. The bottle caps still hung around her neck. It was slightly difficult to find anything overtly strange about her when everything else was so naturally abnormal.

If that made any sense at all. Harry's head hurt.

The first years entered the Hall, herded as always by McGonagall. There was no strange older girl among them. It seemed Harry had even missed the hat's song. He rubbed his scar absently, not so much because it hurt but by habit.

The first years were sorted meticulously, and he managed a belated cheer whenever Gryffindor was called. Hermione looked at him worriedly. The Hall settled and Dumbledore rose.

"This year, in addition to our wonderful new first years, we have a new student. I hope you will all extend your most gracious welcomes to her. She's been home-schooled, so being here might be a shock to her. Filius," he asked to the squat Charms professor. "Would you please fetch Miss Potter for us?"

Whispers rose, the name repeated throughout the Hall. Heads turned to look at Harry. However, the boy wasn't paying any attention to them. His eyes followed the professor as he trotted towards the doors, sticking out his head.

The doors opened.

Every head turned to see the girl being half-shoved by an annoyed Professor Snape into the Hall. Over-large, hazel eyes took in everything around her. She was paler that Harry, and her hair was twisted into loose ebon curls, framing a heart-shaped face.

She was pretty, he thought. The exoticness of her face, vaguely Spanish-English perhaps, suited thick curves, giving her an animal beauty. Despite the richness of her hips and face, she had sharply delicate wrists, like blades. He watched her flounder for a moment before her eyes focused on Dumbledore.

"Ah, Rose. Welcome." He gestured towards the hat. "If you will?"

She walked. No, she swept. Like she knew each part of her body was suppose to move in a certain way. Her curls bounced over her prim shoulders. She looked longer when she moved, swan-like, but her eyes were wide and wild, frantically searching the Hall like a trapped beast. They stopped twice. Once on Neville and once on Luna.

Luna beamed at her in a way he had never seen before, and he finally understood Neville's faltering explanation. They just… smiled. Rose's smile was grateful and nervous. McGonagall lifted the hat and Rose sat.

The Hall was silent as the hat slid down to her nose, obscuring all but her full lips. Harry noticed absently that her bottom lip was fatter than the top, like she had just been kissed. He glanced at Ginny, new, unpleasant thoughts running through his head about her time in the house of Malfoy.

That mouth started to scowl before the Hat erupted, "Gryffindor!"

Harry jumped, unable to believe he'd be so lucky. He did not join his housemates' cheering as the hat was removed.

It was obvious that Rose did not care for the attention, as she slowly scooted closer and closer to Neville. When the food appeared, she only nibbled, systematically handling her spoon and knife.

He didn't know what to do, if he should call for her and if he did what he should say. We don't know each other, but we're family. I'm the reason you're a life debt to the Malfoys. We swallowed, not even able to open his mouth.

Hermione sent him a sympathetic look, interrupting the conversation around the girl.

"Don't you want to meet him?"

Harry glanced down the table, half afraid of the answer, watching her in the way one is forced to watched oncoming disasters.

Rose hid her face by addressing her plate. "I have no say in what Mr. Potter wants or does not want," she said with practiced speech. "That is his discretion."

Seamus glanced at him. "Don't you want to meet him?"

Harry started to break the conversation. It was unfair when she obviously had no idea he was right there. But Rose sent a glare at her plate and set down her utensils, tenseness in her shoulders, answering while he still was still awkwardly deliberating.

"In case Dumbledore forgot to mention it, I am a life debt."

Harry was not expecting the reactions that caused. A few students eavesdropping from the other tables suddenly scooted back, looks of disgust on their faces. One boy from Gryffindor started to move down the table. Neville's eyes were wide with understanding.

Rose continued like she didn't notice. "Whether Mr. Potter is inclined to meet me or not is within his discretion. Custom regards me as a..." She hesitated over the word, glancing to the side. Like she needed to gather her courage to say the words. "Cast off."

Neville actually winced, looking over his shoulder.

"I am not permitted to speak to a member of my old house without his permission," she said, no longer pretending to touch her food.

"That's ridiculous," Hermione said. "You're his family."

At last the girl looked up. It wasn't often when someone looked at Hermione like that, like she obviously didn't understand something. Rose turned away, taking her goblet.

"I assure you," she said bitterly. "I am not."

Harry couldn't take it anymore. He leaned up in his seat, a sound escaping his throat before he could control it. As if trained, Rose looked over, and her eyes widened in shock.

She knew him. Harry didn't need any awkward introduction. Her eyes did not run to his scar. She stared him right in the face and knew him, the similarities between them impossible to miss. Even though they were only cousins.

"You," his tongue worked dumbly. "I want you to speak to me."

He felt like he couldn't have said anything more stupid, but Rose nodded in a trance, looking at equally overwhelmed as he did. He could not imagine what this felt like for her, what Dumbledore had told her about him, what she knew about who he was. He only knew he had to keep her with him, the last of his family.

Ginny's hand felt like something foreign, and he unconsciously leaned towards her.

"Are you alright?" she whispered.

"I'm fine," he answered automatically then changed his mind. "I don't know. I don't know anything."

Her brow furrowed and she didn't speak. Harry held her hand, needing it to ground him.

Dinner ended before he'd touched his meal, too caught up in his thoughts to pay attention to anything else.

o.O.o

I didn't know where the common room was but I really, _really_, didn't want to stop and ask. The hand on my shoulder was hesitant and shy, and I forced myself not to spin around and snap.

Forcibly slow, I met Neville's gaze. His silent smile was appreciated as he led me back down the corridor. I felt my shoulders sagging, losing the fire of injustice. By the time we reached the Fat lady, I was too tired to care.

Neville stammered until someone spoke the password behind us. The common room was mostly empty, late as it was, but I didn't take the time to appreciate the warm walls and heavy red and gold brocade. The couches looked very comfortable, rich floral imprint etched out in standard brick red with gold rope trim.

I hesitated, unsure of where I stood. As a servant, I could not sit until they were seated, but I was swaying on my feet. I suddenly felt another inquisitive touch, more timid even than Neville, at my elbow.

I rested my head in my hands, knowing it was my lord Potter.

"Do you need the nurse?" he asked, voice full of concern he didn't know how to express.

I shook my head. "I just need sleep."

The bushy-haired girl, a prefect who had introduced herself as Hermione Granger, came down the stairs, likely having finished orienting the first years.

Her eyes full on us. "What took you so long?"

"Professor McGonagall requested to speak with me," I said, trying, and likely failing, to straighten.

She peered at me. "Are you alright?"

I sighed, wondering how many people were going to ask before I'd be dismissed to bed. "I'm just tired."

She did not look entirely convinced, the look she gave of someone used to recalcitrant children lying through their teeth.

"I'll show you to your bed," she said after she was done inspecting me.

I checked another sigh of relief, following her up the stairs. I ignored all the eyes on my back.

o.O.o

Thank Merlin it was Saturday. First day at school and no classes. I stretched. The sun had yet to rise through the window, but I could feel it coming. My toes curled under the sheet. With a muffed grunt, my body went lax. I stared at the canopy for a moment before I drew back the covers.

It was dark, deep grey shadows stretching across the canopies and my slumbering dormmates. I changed leisurely out of the school uniform in which I had slept, padding on cold floors to the showers.

They were marked only with a small sign on the door at the opposite end of the room. The stalls were cut into the stone and a chilly this early in the morning. Seventh years had showers separate from the underclassmen. The four stalls seemed to be personally allotted, three spares cast sporadically between the others. Mine, I found, was in the far right-hand corner of the room, the towel rack nailed to the wall instead of the columns between the stalls.

The water felt great, steam erasing the morning chill. It ran through my tangled hair, the locks growing dark and heavy. I dried off in the stall, the towel so pleasantly fuzzy that I knew the house elves must have taken in from the line the morning before.

No one had awakened when I returned, but a dull shade of light came through the window. With a quick flourish, I wrapped up my hair and dressed. I left my hair down, impatient to explore the castle.

Though the corridors were wide, more often opening to sweet alcoves and gardens, I did not feel my usual pinch of panic. The school was old, moving with the hills. Like the inside of the shadow of a mountain. It was impossible to provoke my agoraphobia.

The stairs moved. I hadn't noticed the moving staircase yesterday, too tired and fussy. So many, I thought they'd be impossible to navigate even after living here for centuries. The armor stared after me as I walked, paintings snoring or moving with the diligence of seasoned workers.

Confined to Bathilda's house, I had never experienced such things. Read about them, learned of them, even seen them in the picture books, but never experienced them. It made me feel young.

Caught in my musings, I curtseyed to a stray knight whom I had awoken with my passing.

"I bit wistful this morning, aren't we?"

I turned and caught sight of my lord, glistening in his public robes.

"Good morning, my lord," I said, bowing to him as well.

He didn't smile back. Draco was leaning against a corner, his arms crossed and his foot balanced arrogantly. The whisper of heritage that had been present in his home had somehow been turned into a gaudy peal. His clothes were well kempt, a silky black shirt and the more traditional wizarding robes replaced by dark manticore-hide breeches. Even his shoes screamed wealth, polished and with the added heel that had become fashionable that year.

"I trust you were welcomed into your house with open arms," he sneered, looking at freshly manicured nails.

He was angry, and I didn't really understand why.

I answered carefully. "Perhaps a little more enthusiastically than my lot, my lord, but there was little harm done."

"Little harm done," he echoed lowly, eyes on his rich fingers. "Little Gryffindor."

"You… don't like my house?"

He flashed with anger, the pretense of his interest forsaken. "_Your house_ is a despicable excuse of an establishment, full of mudbloods and traitors!"

I eyed him evenly. "You mean to say they value nothing of heritage?"

He startled, losing ground. Wide stormy eyes met me. "I mean to say."

I walked towards the alcove, where the morning was spilling into the hall from behind Roman columns. I pondered the stones.

"Did you know Ginerva Weasley is a sorceress?"

His lips twitched but I could barely see it. "I have long lost count of their spawn."

I spared him a level look and continued. "I wonder at all the things hidden from them."

The alcove was silent save the birds trilling above the eaves. They seemed so exited by the dawn. As if they had never before seen the morning.

"Why Gryffindor?"

The sudden question startled me. "Hmm. Oh. Mercy if I know. It's a senile dishrag."

"And why do you say that?"

I waved at the air. "Silly thing kept jumping around. First wanted to put me in Hufflepuff, then wanted me in Slytherin, but that might have been because I insulted it. Told me I wasn't _enthused_ enough for Ravenclaw. I think it put me in Gryffindor out of sheer stubbornness."

Draco laughed, his ire forgotten for the moment. "It wanted you in Hufflepuff? Oh that's rich."

I gave him a dirty stare. He stared back, looking far too amused with my frustration.

I was suddenly warmed by the thought that, though he was wearing airs for his peers, this was his private face, something reserved only for his family… and me. I ducked my head to hide how silly my face must have turned, hoping he wouldn't comment.

His index finger touched lightly on my jaw, arrogant its rights.

"The morning suits you."

I was suddenly breathless. I felt his hand move to play with the end of a damp curl that had fallen over my shoulder.

"Then I shall have to greet you every morning," I whispered.

I felt his smile through my skin, a soft curling of his lips like the kneading of a cat's soft paws.

We turned into the alcove, reminded of that day in Allionya's Garden. Nothing could compare to that, a secret we shared in silent glances. He let me beside him on the beach, late summer sun falling over our shoulders. We had another hour perhaps before the halls would start to fill.

"You should put your hair up," he remarked.

I touched my head, having forgotten that my hair was still wet and was becoming unruly.

I blushed. "Pardon. I should have pinned it up before leaving the dorm."

He took my hand and bade me to kneel in front of him. I squirmed between his knees, my back to him and unsure of his intent.

"I like your hair down." He started brushing through the strands with his fingers. "And it looks even better wet."

He started drawing it back into his palm.

"I don't understand. Then why…" He gave a small yank and I quieted.

"Because," he drawled. "You look like you just had sex. Or that you are going to."

My face turned a humorous shade of cherry, and he laughed from inside his throat. I had the vivid urge to tell him everything about my day yesterday. How the crowd had terrified me and meeting Neville on the train. How I befriended Luna and the strangeness of seeing my cousin. I wanted to ask him about the thestrals and Defense Against the Dark Arts, how nervous I was about Charms and Transfiguration and about why my cousin was so important to Voldemort.

But I remained silent. It wasn't my place to voice these things and even less to want him to confide in me.

"What are you thinking?"

Draco was leaning over my face. He had somehow managed to tie my hair into place, probably by transfiguring a ribbon. I had unconsciously scooted closer into his seat, my head almost resting against his lap. He was bent over, regarding me with impatient charcoal eyes. His bangs slid translucent to either side of his face.

"I'm not sure," I answered truthfully. I shuddered.

His gaze turned quizzical, and I was suddenly bound to answer the question there.

"I think I think of you more than I should."

"You think of me," he repeated thoughtfully. His eyes teased. "More than a servant should think of her master?"

My eyes were steadier than my heart.

"More than I think of Master Malfoy."

I felt him make the distinction. His hands ghosted over my shoulders, teasing flesh below my neck. I shied from his touch and inadvertently placed myself further between him.

"More than my father. I thought we understood this when you invited me to your bed."

I scowled at him. "I didn't invite you. Merlin, you make me sound like a strumpet."

"I could make you one. Force you," he said coolly in response to my scowl.

"I know," I agreed, calling the weak bluff. I looked away. "As could your father. There is no force to it. I would accept you both just as I accepted the Pact."

"Would you?"

His chuckle was humorless. In a deft motion, the finger resting on my collar slid down. It was eerily similar to a serpent. He brushed passed cloth and clung.

He had come near this in the library, a test of my loyalty and my determination. This felt hot and viperish. He was still mad at me, I realized. Then, just like in the library, I squirmed and acquiesced. Even though something in the way his hands moved felt somewhat more… wrong.

I did not look at him but in the stony distance where nature ended and the school began. Still, I felt his eyes bore into me.

"What did you think of Potter?"

I saw it suddenly, why he really was so upset. Harry Potter. I could feel the thoughts running through his hand. They were so base that it was a shame that I had not understood them sooner. Still, I had much to learn of this world and her denizens.

Softly, I stopped his hand. It surprised me only a little that he complied. I turned, the grass churning under my shoes. I saw the fire in his eyes now, hidden beneath the masquerade of ice.

Slowly, wondering at my own presumption, I rose until I was in his lap completely, legs parted around him and my arms balanced on his shoulders. He was forced, with awkward confusion, to rest his hands on my hips. My knees hit the back of the bench, and my dress rose to expose the straps of my garter, the edge of milky thighs. In this position, I had to lean forward, my head above him.

Making sure I had his attention, I spoke into his bewildered eyes.

"He does not command me."

He stared up, shocked by the pair of promise and boldness.

"You really do serve Malfoy," he breathed, his chin brushing my collarbone.

I allowed myself a small smile, already overly brash. "I've been saying that for the past month, my lord."

His fingers tightened over my hips, and he looked away. He had no idea how to deal with me. With less grace than his mother and less power than his father, there was still no one anyone else I would serve, tangled in the best and worst of tradition. I wondered at the future for him, so much potential in a seed overshadowed by monoliths.


	10. Marabovs

Chapter 10: Marabovs

My association with Master Malfoy was never supposed to be a secret, but it spread through the halls of Hogwarts like a maggot. The fervent devotion to gossip in this school was revolting. I imagined even Draco was become bored with the questions his classmates poised upon him. I know Harry despaired of it. And Neville. Even Ron and Ginny, though Luna bore it with good taste. Odd taste but good nonetheless.

I had Care of Magical Creatures with her. Though the burly gamekeeper in charge of the class seemed a bit overwhelming and simple-minded, I found myself growing a fondness for the half-giant. His kindness reminded me of an old type of magic that I did not often dabble in, simple but mystic. That type of Light magic that descended from the highlands. Farmer magic. Healthy, steadfast and loyal.

But Hagrid had it sewn into his bones, the hearty (and often heady) innocence of unicorns and mooncalves.

However, my favorite teacher was Professor Flitwick. My schedule was not conclusive to my level of magic in the subject, but we arranged private sessions alternating between Transfiguration every other day. The gnomish man had a patience that exceeded him, and I enjoyed the way he smiled giddily at me when I managed a spell.

Transfiguration was more of a catch-up. I really did know all the spells. It was only a matter of practice. Transfiguration was a science that lacked the manner of art Charms required. I might have been slower in the latter, but I found it much more favorable.

However, in Defense Against the Dark Arts, Professor Snape had neither the patience nor the forgiveness of Flitwick and McGonagall. He thought I was an idiot. As proposed, I had visited the library and found my definition of Dark very different from the definition provided by the Ministry. They made magic such a legality. It was such a difficult class for me to understand. My confrontations with Professor Snape were often brutal, and once, I even threw my wand at him. Not one of my most clever moments, but the bedamned man was infuriating.

The professors had decided to let me sit in on Potions and Herbology for the first few weeks before allowing me to take the NEWTs. Perfectly understandable and completely unnecessary. I think I bore it with good grace. I didn't tell them to sod off. If Slughorn was a little miffed at my lack of participation in class that was his own fault.

I found myself helping Neville whenever the opportunity arose. The boy had an unnatural fear of Professor Snape that had ruined any chance of appreciating the fine art of potion brewing. Sure, he was annoying as Hades, but I couldn't see the dark man as being terrifying as say, the Grim Reaper. I think having Slughorn teach helped, but his aversion to Potions seemed transfixed on his ex-professor.

The kid was a whiz at herbology. Though potions were more my forte (needing the least amount of magical skill), herbology had always been an interest of mine. Professor Sprout had the grim pleasure of shushing our discussions whenever we gathered for her class. (Miss Bagshot would have backhanded me.) But we could never keep silent for long, and I think the professor was secretly pleased her favorite student had someone to talk to.

I seemed to have gathered myself a niche in Hogwarts. I found a Slytherin sixth year, Justin Elmsworthy, who I had met at the summer party, to discuss Potions with; Neville accompanied me in Herbology, and Luna was an ever-present ear. Draco was a comfort and a hindrance each morning, braiding my hair with a patience I'd never thought of him. I had never guessed how articulate his fingers were, weaving my hair into elaborate French braids that I assumed his mother had taught him.

In between silences, we discovered that we had a very similar taste in literature. The classics had been pounded into both us, and it was with great hesitation that he admitted he'd read _Romeo and Juliet_. The Nott boy had goaded him into it when he was in a particularly nasty snit with his father. He'd read the muggle novel (sparingly when he had neither of his parents' attentions) and found it surprisingly intelligent. For a muggle.

Enthused by the surprise, I brought Hamlet to him the next morning, presenting it before spreading my skirt on the ground before the bench.

"I think you'll like it better," I said and no more, wondering what he'd make of the tormented son.

Writing was not a suitable job in the wizarding world. I think living in magic stole a bit of our imagination and that we lacked a great deal of common sense. Wizards could write all the articles and journals and books on boorish custom and experiment and study that they wanted, but they had a terrible time of making good stories. Those that did, like Luna, were pushed to the edge of our society and deemed mad.

My relationship with Draco, while not the easiest thing to describe, was still not as difficult as my relationship with Harry Potter. Each time I saw him, the tension increased until I though I would burst of it. As much as I had slid into life at Hogwarts and with Draco, the same ease was not allotted me with Harry.

Frankly, out of everything new I was experiencing, he scared me the most.

o.O.o

I huffed. "I just don't get it." I lowered my wand, annoyed.

The sun shone out over the lake as Luna plopped down beside me. We had foregone the school uniform to sit out by the lake on the second Sunday of the school year. Both our shoes lay piled among the grass.

I sprawled, resting my head in her lap as she began to knead through the braid Draco had done up that morning. My stockings itched, and I rose up to remove them before resuming my lazy mumblings. Luna was silent, listening.

"I read through the library," I said, blocking the sun with one hand. "I understand the defense. Really, I do. It's just…" I trailed off. "I don't know. It just doesn't feel right."

Luna hummed, a far away gaze on her aquiline face as I continued.

"Miss Bagshot told me that Dark magic was a part of our core. She said it was just part of nature. That it couldn't be any stronger than the Light but it wasn't any weaker."

"Old magic," Luna agreed. Her strange face was unchanging, like porcelain. Her fingers continued to stroke.

"Yes, but…"

It was impossible to explain, this part of me that wanted to laugh at what these people called curse. Dark magic was ancient enchantment. It rooted and branched. It was impossible to defend against without succumbing and letting it pass through. Otherwise, it's like swimming against a current. You can only struggle so much before you learn to float. Or drown.

"You're thinking the wrong way," Luna said in her dreamy tone, patting me lightly on the forehead. Looking up at her, the sun was indistinguishable from her hair.

"I can't help it," I snapped. She took no offense, patting my forehead.

"Ready to try again?"

I huffed again but took to my feet. My strange, strange wand. It was probably Darker than any spell I could muster on school grounds. I wasn't sure I trusted it, though I still felt it dear to me.

I envisioned the spell I wanted, a simple _protego_, and closed my eyes. Maybe I was thinking about this the wrong way. I had been plucked up from total isolation and dropped in the middle of a society that I knew only from texts. I loosened my hold of the wand and focused only on a shield, nothing that had to named by Light and Dark or even defense. The magic came much more regularly.

"_Protego_."

I felt only a surge, passing through like a breath, but when I opened my eyes, I stood shocked beneath a dome that extended half the distance to the forest and was as tall as a pine.

Luna smiled approvingly, her wand tucked behind her ear. Slowly, I lowered my wand and watched as the crown fell, dissolving around me without even the hint of a pulse. So this was the evolution of magic.

"Better?" Luna asked.

I nodded, wondering why I felt wronged.

"I didn't expect it to be so large though," she hummed, touching the edge of the grass where my shield had stood. She stroked her finger along her cheek, as if painting a war mark.

"It's usually smaller?" I asked.

"Yes," she gave in that cryptic voice that told me she was thinking of something incredibly un-human. "You need to make it smaller."

I eyed her dubiously. "What are you thinking?"

"Right now? About daffodils in winter and why gnome rats like pudding."

I grinned, as she had meant me to. My wand tingled my palm, and I was entirely unsure of what it was reacting to.

"It was more concentrated too. Wasn't it?" I asked her.

Luna tilted her head. As if trying to see something vaguely abstract in a twisted picture.

"And, you think it can get bigger," I hedged from looking at her. "And the power levels in my core must be fantastically high to produce something like that on my first try." My jaw ticked. "Or fantastically erratic."

Which meant I was extremely powerful (which made me feel sick just thinking about) or extremely dangerous. Perhaps both.

A hand touched my arm. I looked into Luna's face. There was no caution, no worry or unease. Just the same Luna who had befriended me for the sole reason that I had given her a glass slipper.

"Miss Lovegood, may I have permission to call you Luna?"

She answered with a steady gaze. "Of course."

"Hey Luna?"

"Yes."

I opened and closed my mouth. We understood one another, Luna and I. She understood what I didn't say probably better than I did.

"Nothing."

She stared off over the lake. "Do you think the marabovs will blossom next spring?"

I sat down beside her, my hand touching hers. "I don't know. They're always so temperamental."

o.O.o

Snape was reading over the second year assignments. Absolute rubbish as usual. They knew nothing about disproportion and equivalency. Dumbledore should have made Arithmancy mandatory. He sipped his brandy as he scrawled another T onto a student's work, not even bothering to glance at the name.

Another scroll on his desk caught his attention. This scroll had been distracting him for a quarter of an hour. It just sat there, rolled to a perfect 36 inches with a magenta ribbon. Noted, it really wasn't the scroll that was annoying him but the scroll's blasted owner. Rosalind Potter had strolled in here 15 minutes ago, set it on his desk, and strolled back out, those damn curls bouncing behind her and not even hesitating long enough to let him insult her for intruding upon the privacy of his Sunday.

He couldn't stand her. He couldn't for the life of him understand her motives. The one bloody time he had upset her, she threw, THREW, her damn wand at him, and he couldn't remember what the bloody hell he'd said. She was a damn enigma. He had expected her to flock to Potter or at least oppose him like a good little spy. Why else would the old codger have sent her to the Malfoys? In all the time he had to break the life debt, Dumbledore had done nothing. Instead, he sent her to be groomed by Bathilda Bagshot. Bathilda Bagshot of all people! The crone was a despot. Minerva was almost as upset as Molly Weasley when she found out.

He took a sip of brandy. No, Rosalind Potter had many things to hide, yet… she didn't. She could just have easily played by Dumbledore's rules. It was only through her that they had found out about Bathilda. It certainly would have been easier for Dumbledore if she would have lied or even evaded the question completely.

Such a strange girl.

He absently rubbed the tattoo on his left arm, pressing the material of the cloth into the ink.

Everything about her was a mess. Her avoidance of Potter, her friendship with the Ravenclaw girl, and her entire view on magic.

And her eyes… There was something very… so… He growled, throwing his quill. The scroll was impressively despondent despite his glare, the same irksome offhandedness present in its mistress. Those eyes burned at him, made him want to claw them out. There was something missing in those eyes, something wrong, and it was the most irritating, annoying, damned bloody nuisance! Like an itch he couldn't reach, ten-fold!

Severus picked up the scroll. He cast the ribbon aside. It landed on the unmarked assignments, swirling neatly like a long maroon serpent. The handwriting was elegant. It suited Bathilda's legacy to school her student in the art of calligraphy, a practice now exercised only by the most stringent of Purebloods. It was always pleasant to see the flowing script of Draco Malfoy, Parkinson, Zabini and Elmsworthy. And here too, young Miss Rose Potter.

_Dear Professor,_

_I am well aware that you told me to write an essay on the uses of the five elemental spells. Please excuse my boldness, but I find myself compelled to write another paper. _

_Upon practicing the protego spell, I have discovered something abnormal in the distribution of power in my magic. The concentration of energy in my shield is far too high, especially considering its size. I have mapped out the calculations on the density of my magic below as well as the respective area and perimeter of my spell._

_There is also something you should know about my wand. I have a dementor bone wand and a thestral hair core. Without an elemental base, I should not be able to connect with so much power so easily. I have researched and calculated the findings on wandlore, though I was unable to find any wand with these bases, and my respective cores and have included it in this paper._

_I have contacted my master and he has sent me to me. I will beg of you not to inform the Headmaster. If you require a reason, know that he has known me all my life. He has never seen fit to inform me of the discrepancies in my magic, and I must assume that he knows something to its reasoning that I do not._

_Blessings be,_

_Rosalind Titian Potter_

Snape skimmed the equations. She was right.

He understood the warning clearly. She didn't think this was natural. She believed that this had been done to her.

Severus cursed, his fingers pressing deep into the dark and gloomy ink that marked his pallid skin. Why would Dumbledore have made her into a bomb? If he meant to hinder her ability, then why was her magic so inflated? He would have to see it, but he imagined the friction in her magic must be highly over stimulated, building up in her core like a flooded dam. But how on earth had it lasted so long, blocked and unblocked? Surely, such turbulence…

He shook his head. He couldn't think about this all at once. He would have to read her paper. But he really didn't want to imagine that Dumbledore had been tampering with her core. Not only was it illegal, it was dangerous and completely amoral.

Was this entire war just monsters fighting monsters? And him, stuck in between.


End file.
